Mexico Elects First Woman President    06/03 06:18

   Mexico's projected presidential winner Claudia Sheinbaum will become the 
first woman president in the country's 200-year history.

   MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexico's projected presidential winner Claudia Sheinbaum 
will become the first woman president in the country's 200-year history.

   "I will become the first woman president of Mexico," Sheinbaum said with a 
smile, speaking at a downtown hotel shortly after electoral authorities 
announced a statistical sample showed she held an irreversible lead. "I don't 
make it alone. We've all made it, with our heroines who gave us our homeland, 
with our mothers, our daughters and our granddaughters."

   "We have demonstrated that Mexico is a democratic country with peaceful 
elections," she said.

   The National Electoral Institute's president said Sheinbaum had between 
58.3% and 60.7% of the vote, according to a statistical sample. Opposition 
candidate Xchitl Glvez had between 26.6% and 28.6% of the vote and Jorge 
Alvarez Mynez had between 9.9% and 10.8% of the vote. Sheinbaum's Morena party 
was also projected to hold majorities in both chambers of Congress.

   The climate scientist and former Mexico City mayor said that her two 
competitors had called her and conceded her victory.

   The official preliminary count put Sheinbaum 28 points ahead of Glvez with 
nearly 50% of polling places reporting.

   The fact that the two leading candidates were women had left little doubt 
that Mexico would make history Sunday. Sheinbaum will also be the first person 
from a Jewish background to lead the overwhelmingly Catholic country.

   She will start her six-year term Oct. 1. Mexico's constitution does not 
allow reelection.

   The leftist has said she believes the government has a strong role to play 
in addressing economic inequality and providing a sturdy social safety net, 
much like her political mentor President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador.

   Sheinbaum's her victory suggests that the political movement Lpez Obrador 
created will live on after his presidency.

   His anointed successor, the 61-year-old Sheinbaum led the campaign 
wire-to-wire despite a spirited challenge from Glvez. This was the first time 
in Mexico that the two main opponents were women.

   "Of course, I congratulate Claudia Sheinbaum with all my respect who ended 
up the winner by a wide margin," Lpez Obrador said shortly after the electoral 
authorities' announcement. "She is going to be Mexico's first (woman) president 
in 200 years."

   If the margin holds it would approach his landslide victory in 2018. Lpez 
Obrador won the presidency after two unsuccessful tries with 53.2% of the 
votes, in a three-way race where National Action took 22.3% and the 
Institutional Revolutionary Party took 16.5%.

   Still, Sheinbaum is unlikely to enjoy the kind of unquestioning devotion 
that Lpez Obrador has enjoyed.

   In Mexico City's colonial-era main plaza, the Zocalo, Sheinbaum's win did 
not draw the kind of cheering, jubilant crowds that greeted Lpez Obrador's 
victory in 2018. Those present were enthusiastic, but comparatively few in 
number.

   "I promise that I am not going to let you down," Sheinbaum said, once she 
arrived in the plaza.

   Sara Ros, 76, a retired literature professor at Mexico's National 
Autonomous University, celebrated after hearing that Glvez had conceded.

   "The only way that we move forward is by working together," Ros said. "She 
is going to work to bring peace to the country, and is going to manage to 
advance, but it is a slow process."

   Fernando Fernndez, a chef, 28, acknowledged challenges ahead while waiting 
to hear the results in the square.

   "You vote for Claudia out of conviction, for AMLO," Fernndez said, 
referring to Lpez Obrador by his initials. But his highest hope is that 
Sheinbaum can "improve what AMLO couldn't do, the price of gasoline, crime and 
drug trafficking, which he didn't combat even though he had the power."

   The main opposition candidate, Glvez, a tech entrepreneur and former 
senator, had promised to take a more aggressive approach toward organized crime.

   In her concession speech, she said "I want to stress that my recognition (of 
Sheinbaum's victory) comes with a firm demand for results and solutions to the 
country's serious problems."

   Nearly 100 million people were registered to vote and turnout appeared to be 
about 60%, similar to earlier elections.

   Voters were also electing governors in nine of the country's 32 states, and 
choosing candidates for both houses of Congress, thousands of mayorships and 
other local posts, in the biggest elections the nation has seen and ones that 
have been marked by violence.

   The elections were widely seen as a referendum on Lpez Obrador, a populist 
who has expanded social programs but largely failed to reduce cartel violence 
in Mexico. His Morena party currently holds 23 of the 32 governorships and a 
simple majority of seats in both houses of Congress.

   Sheinbaum promised to continue all of Lpez Obrador's policies, including a 
universal pension for the elderly and a program that pays youths to apprentice.

   The persistent cartel violence and Mexico's middling economic performance 
were the main issues on voters' minds.

   Julio Garca, a Mexico City office worker, said he was voting for the 
opposition in Mexico City's central San Rafael neighborhood. "They've robbed me 
twice at gunpoint. You have to change direction, change leadership," the 
34-year-old said. "Continuing the same way, we're going to become Venezuela."

   On the fringes of Mexico City in the neighborhood of San Andres Totoltepec, 
electoral officials filed past 34-year-old homemaker Stephania Navarrete, who 
watched dozens of cameramen and electoral officials gathering where frontrunner 
Claudia Sheinbaum was set to vote.

   Navarrete said she planned to vote for Sheinbaum despite her own doubts 
about Lpez Obrador and his party.

   "Having a woman president, for me as a Mexican woman, it's going to be like 
before when for the simple fact that you say you are a woman you're limited to 
certain professions. Not anymore."

   She said the social programs of Sheinbaum's mentor were crucial, but added 
that deterioration of cartel violence in the past few years was her primary 
concern in this election.

   "That is something that they have to focus more on," she said. "For me 
security is the major challenge. They said they were going to lower the levels 
of crime, but no, it was the opposite, they shot up. Obviously, I don't 
completely blame the president, but it is in a certain way his responsibility."

   Lpez Obrador claims to have reduced historically high homicide levels by 
20% since he took office in December 2018. But that's largely a claim based on 
a questionable reading of statistics. The real homicide rate appears to have 
declined by only about 4% in six years.

   Just as the upcoming November rematch between U.S. President Joe Biden and 
former President Donald Trump has underscored deep divisions in the U.S., 
Sunday's election revealed how severely polarized public opinion is in Mexico 
over the direction of the country, including its security strategy and how to 
grow the economy.