Preliminary results project Claudia Sheinbaum to become Mexico’s first female president

Mexico is set to elect its first female president, with preliminary results showing Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico City’s former mayor and climate scientist, is on track to win the country’s largest election in history.

Mexico is set to elect its first female president, with preliminary results showing Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico City’s former mayor and climate scientist, is on track to win the country’s largest election in history. Sheinbaum has won between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote, according to what is known as Quick Count, an exercise that the National Electoral Institute (INE) carries out based on a statistical sample of ballots from polling stations. The 61-year-old rode the wave of popularity of her longtime political ally, the outgoing leftist Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and their Morena party. Not only is she set to be Mexico’s first female president, Sheinbaum will also be the country’s first leader of Jewish heritage, although she rarely speaks publicly about her personal background and has governed as a secular leftist. Trailing Sheinbaum is opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez, backed by a coalition of the National Action (PAN), Institutional Revolutionary (PRI) and Democratic Revolution (PRD) parties, with between 26.6% and 28.6% of the votes. In third place is the Citizens’ Movement candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, with between 9.9% and 10.8% of the votes. According to the quick count results, participation in the presidential election was between 58.9% and 61.7% of the electorate of nearly 100 million people.