#EsClaudia

2024 comes a-knockin'

I have seen this hashtag popping up all over Mexico. One that I see regularly has been around for perhaps 6 months, but I have definitely been seeing them more frequently lately. So who es Claudia? And why do people like to reference her with signs, billboards, and spray-painted hashtags on walls and buildings throughout Mexico? And why now?

Who she is

"Claudia" in this case refers to Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, who is the current Head of Government of Mexico City (a sort of cross between the mayor of that city, and the governor of the State of Mexico).

Born in 1962, Sheinbaum has a Ph.D. in Energy Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. She did her undergraduate work at Mexico City's famous Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). She has authored 2 books, as well as hundreds of papers on the subjects of energy, sustainability and the environment. She was a member of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change when that group won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. In 1995, she joined the faculty of UNAM, where she won the prize of best UNAM young researcher in engineering and technological innovation.

Sheinbaum was elected mayor of Mexico City in 2018. She is the first female and first Jewish person to be elected mayor of Mexico's capital.

She has one natural daughter who is in a doctorate of philosophy program at the University of California, Santa Cruz; and a stepson who is a filmmaker.

She has at least two tattoos, although she has let on that she has more. No idea why that's important - but hey, you asked.

Entry into politics

So how did this celebrated and accomplished scientist end up in politics? When she was a student UNAM, she joined the Consejo Estudiantil Universitario (University Student Council); it was this student council that would go on to found Mexico's Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), a social democratic political party. Her experiences at UNAM whetted Sheinbaum's appetite for politics and public service. In 2000, while he was serving as Mexico City's mayor, Mexico's current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) appointed Sheinbaum to the position of Secretary of the Environment of Mexico City. She held that position from 2000 to 2006. AMLO included Sheinbaum in his proposed cabinet for the Secretaría del Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources) for his presidential bid in 2012. After losing that election, AMLO founded the Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) party, which is the ruling party today in Mexico (with AMLO as its head). Sheinbaum was one of the first politicians to join AMLO's new party, which cemented her position in AMLO's inner circle.

In 2015, Sheinbaum was elected mayor of Tlalpan (Mexico City is divided into 16 boroughs, and Tlalpan is the largest geographically) and served in that position until 2017, when she stepped down to run for mayor of Mexico City, an election she won and a position she holds today.

In 2021, she was nominated by the international think tank City Mayors Foundation for the World Mayor prize in recognition of her handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in Mexico City.

Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, making a point from her governor’s podium.

Thanks for the tattoo count, but all that background doesn't explain why her name is popping up outside of Mexico City

Right. We're getting there. Sheinbaum is, to say the least, a rising star in the Morena party; and in 2022, she announced that she would seek the nomination of the party to run as it's candidate for the presidency of Mexico in the general election that will be held in July of 2024 (presidents in Mexico cannot serve two consecutive terms, thus AMLO re-running is not an option). In polling within the Morena party, Sheinbaum is so far ahead of her nearest rival that it's not even worth the ink to talk about those potential candidates. And her lead continues to grow. She is very popular in the party, and it helps that AMLO apparently sees her as the best candidate to replace him.

As I've discussed in this article, Morena is a hugely popular party in Mexico - a popularity that is aided by the disgust that most Mexicans hold for the perennially corrupt PRI party. And while it is not a given that the larger electorate in Mexico will vote for a Jewish female candidate, Sheinbaum certainly appears to be the candidate to beat.

However, she is not without political baggage that could harm her chances at winning the general election:

Destruction of Enrique Rébsamen Private School

In 2017, while Sheinbaum was serving as mayor of Tlalpan, the Puebla earthquake struck. This earthquake caused significant damage in the borough of Tlalpan, including the partial destruction of the Enrique Rébsamen Private School, in which 19 children and 7 adults were killed. Sheinbaum was accused of having allowed the school to operate without proper construction, land use, and operation permits and for not being transparent with the public on the status and conditions of those permits.

Mexico City Metro Collapse

On May 3rd, 2021, girders supporting part of Line 12 of Mexico City's subway system collapsed, taking with them two metro cars full of passengers. The accident left 26 dead, 80 injured, and 5 unaccounted for. Sheinbaum was the governor of Mexico City at this time, and her critics have saddled her with a somewhat vague blame for problems whose origins clearly pre-date her term as mayor. Nevertheless, as mayor, Sheinbaum has a responsibility to oversee the safety and security of various infrastructure in Mexico City, and this accident has definitely damaged her politically.

Association with AMLO

Sheinbaum's friendship and alliance with AMLO is a double-edged sword. While it gives her a lot of clout in the Morena party, AMLO has turned off a lot of the base that elected him president with his authoritative tendencies and dismantling (or attempts to dismantle) various institutions that are perceived as fundamental to Mexico's democracy.

Still, a generally bright outlook for Sheinbaum

Perhaps a decade or two ago, the chances that Mexican voters would elect a female president would have been pretty small. However, in recent years female candidates have been winning races all over Mexico: 9 of Mexico's 32 states currently have a female governor, and the last 5 years saw a 71% increase in the number of women occupying the offices of mayor, governor, state deputy, federal deputy, and federal senator across Mexico (for a total of 1,385 women holding these positions). Moreover, women now occupy about half of the seats in the lower house of the federal Congress and in the upper house of the federal Senate.

Sheinbaum also diverges politically from AMLO in several key areas, most significantly on climate and the environment. Whereas AMLO has been happy to invest in dirty energy as long as it meant job growth - including investing in more oil refineries - Sheinbaum believes in job growth via investment in clean energy initiatives, including much needed investment in electrifying the transport sector, including passenger vehicles. She remains at heart a scientist, and she has stated that she will pursue a more evidence-based form of governance, in contrast to AMLO's often reactive and populist approach to leadership.

She also holds a more practical, trade-oriented position on relations with the United States; whereas AMLO, while pro-trade, often likes to take an antagonistic stance (at least in the rhetoric he shares with the public) on Mexico-U.S. relations.

Finally, there are what look to be merely also-rans from the legacy PRI and PRD parties, who have been struggling to come up with a credible alternative to Sheinbaum, or any Morena candidate.

So who am I voting for in '24?

I'm looking forward to the 2024 elections. I think it will be an interesting race to follow, with potentially historical implications beyond merely politics as usual. That said, Mexico is still a democracy, and I don't have to tell you who I'm voting for. And I've yet to spray paint "#EsClaudia" on the side of my house, but the ferretería is conveniently right down the street, should the urge overtake me.