Mexico elects Claudia Sheinbaum as the country’s first-ever female president, electoral institute says

Mexico’s left-leaning climate scientist Claudia Sheinbaum has secured enough votes to become the Latin American country’s first-ever female president.

The country’s electoral institute published a rapid count estimate late Sunday night saying that Sheinbaum had won the presidential election. The estimate has a margin of error of +/-1.5%, the institute said.

After dominating the polls for months, Sheinbaum defeated her election rival, center-right businesswoman Xóchitl Gálvez, in the landmark vote.

A protégé of her long-time ally and mentor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum is now poised to succeed AMLO when his six-year term as president comes to an end on Oct. 1.

In a speech after the preliminary results, Sheinbaum said the government will have “republican austerity, financial and fiscal discipline and autonomy,” according to a CNBC translation, adding that the country “will never have an authoritarian or oppressive government.”

“We will maintain the required division between the economic power and the political power. We will always defend and we will work for the ultimate interest of the people of Mexico and of the nation,” she said.

Sheinbaum also sketched out a loose vision of Mexico’s ties with neighboring U.S. under her stewardship. “With the United States, there will be a relationship of friendship, mutual respect and equality, as has been the case until now. And we will always defend Mexicans who find themselves on the other side of the frontier,” she said.

The U.S. dollar was little changed against the Mexican peso around 1 a.m. local time.

Current President Lopez Obrador congratulated Sheinbaum on becoming the country’s first female premier in 200 years in a video address translated by CNBC: “The name of Mexico was brought once more to heights. It is a pride to be Mexican.”

Sheinbaum, a former Mexico City mayor who was dubbed the “ice lady” by her political rivals, has pledged to largely continue with AMLO’s policies and has received the backing of his ruling Morena party.

Sheinbaum previously worked as a contributing author to a report from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Yet, the 61-year-old did not make the climate threats facing Mexico a central part of her campaign.

Analysts have said Mexico’s next government will face significant fiscal and structural realities, requiring tough choices when balancing investment plans, the popular — yet costly — welfare programs and perhaps most importantly, Pemex. The state petroleum company has been struggling under soaring debt levels and lower-than-expected oil production.

“Without a concrete solution to the elephant in the room — Pemex — neither external market sentiment nor the credit ratings agencies are convinced of Sheinbaum’s fiscal credentials,” analysts at Verisk Maplecroft said in a recent research note.

“Her main proposal — to kick the can down the road by refinancing Pemex’s upcoming debt obligations (USD 6.8 billion in 2025, followed by USD 10.5 billion in 2026 — and a total of USD 39 billion by the end of the decade) — are unlikely to wash with investors, given Pemex’s deep structural issues,” they added.