Refer Report

On the 1st (local time), Claudia Sheinbaum (62), Mexico’s first female president in 200 years of constitutional amendments, was inaugurated.

According to Mexican daily newspaper El Universal, President Sheinbaum, who will lead Mexico with a population of 130 million for six years, attended the inauguration ceremony held at the Federal House of Representatives in Mexico City and took the oath.

President Sheinbaum held a ceremony in front of the National Assembly to receive the shoulder belt from former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. This means a transfer of presidential power.

President Sheinbaum expressed his ambition by saying, “Now is the era of change and the time for women,” adding, “We will continue our humanistic tradition of prioritizing the interests of the people and caring for the poor first.” “For the first time, we have arrived in a place where our women are leading the destiny of our beautiful country,” he said. “I did not come here alone. “We have all arrived, including the women who fought to make their dreams come true, our ancestors who could not learn to read because they were women, the mothers who gave birth to new lives, and the beautiful daughters,” he said.

Attendees at the inauguration ceremony applauded and called President Sheinbaum “presidenta,” adding the feminine ending “a” to the Spanish word for president.

At the inauguration ceremony, Latin American leaders such as Luis Inacio Lula Daciuba (Brazil), Gustavo Petro (Colombia), Gabriel Boric (Chile), Bernardo Arevalo (Guatemala), and Miguel Diaz-Canel (Cuba), as well as the wife of U.S. President Joe Biden, attended the inauguration ceremony. First Lady Jill Biden and others attended.

After the inauguration ceremony, President Sheinbaum moved to the nearby Zocalo Square. After receiving a bouquet of flowers and a baton from an indigenous women’s group, he announced 100 pledges in front of a crowd of citizens filling the square. He promised to introduce a cap on soaring food prices, expand cash transfer programs for women and children, support corporate investment and housing and railroad construction, and actively respond to the climate crisis.

On the 1st (local time), new Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum hugs an indigenous woman at the Zocalo Square in Mexico City. AP Yonhap News

Mexican citizens expressed expectations that women’s human rights would advance if the Sheinbaum administration took power. President Sheinbaum plans to implement policies to significantly reduce the rate of violence against women, which is considered a serious problem in Mexican society.

Of the 19 ministerial cabinet members, President Sheinbaum appointed 9 female ministers, including Interior Secretary Rosa Ila Rodriguez. They also plan to run the country by collaborating with high-ranking female officials, including Mexico’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Norma Piña, Luisa María Alcalde, leader of the ruling National Regeneration Movement (Morena), Victoria Rodríguez Cesar, President of the Bank of Mexico, and Clara Brugada, the next mayor of Mexico City.

There are a mountain of problems that the Sheinbaum administration must solve. As internal strife breaks out in the Mexican drug cartel Sinaloa, various murders are rampant in the northern region, and the Pacific coastal region has been devastated by the effects of Hurricane ‘John’. Regarding the immigration issue, we must work hand in hand with the United States, where the government will change next year. In a situation where the budget is in deficit, the task of securing finances to implement public projects and large-scale welfare policies remains. Attention is also being paid to how to overcome the conflict between the judiciary and the party and government due to the judicial reform promoted by the former Obrador administration.

President Sheinbaum, a former environmental engineering researcher, is classified as ‘pro-Obrador’ as he served as Minister of Environment and Mayor of Mexico City during the Obrador administration. There is an analysis that President Sheinbaum was able to build a strong political career due to former President Obrador’s policy of equal gender allocation to key positions. He plans to continue the previous administration’s stance in areas such as economy, labor, and welfare, such as proclaiming that he will raise the minimum wage to 2.5 times the basic cost of living during his term.

On the 1st (local time), supporters of new President Claudia Sheinbaum are gathering at the central square in Mexico City, where the inauguration speech was delivered. The woman’s hand sign in the photo reads “Women’s Era” in Spanish. It says, “We fully support Claudia’s strong change.” AP Yonhap News

Source: Korean