Physicist and engineer Claudia Sheinbaum is the great favorite to win the Mexican elections on June 2 and be the country’s first president.
Polls indicate that he is about twenty points ahead of his main rival, the former opposition senator. Xochitl Galvez.
Sheinbaum, 61, is the candidate of the ruling coalition Let’s Keep Making History. And she has campaigned around the idea of continuing the so-called “fourth transformation,” the brand of the current president’s government. Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The candidate was head of government of Mexico City from 2018 to 2023, when she left office to run for the presidency.
Sheinbaum spoke this Wednesday with BBC journalist Will Grant. The interview was originally conducted in English before a campaign event in Veracruz.
The BBC also requested an interview with Gálvez, but his campaign declined the request for scheduling reasons.
If you win or if your rival wins, Mexico will have its first female president. How important do you think that moment is for a country like Mexico?
The first thing is that we are going to win. There is no chance, or at least a very small one, of the opposition winning the elections.
And it is a symbol for Mexico. I think it is a symbol for the world.
Mexico has been called a sexist country for many years. And, when you have a female president, it means that she is no longer as sexist as she was before.
And we are going to work for women too.
And what real difference will that make if the issues of machismo at the heart of society are not addressed, such as gender violence, violence against women, femicides in Mexico, inequality at work?
If those issues are not addressed and they remain the same, it does not matter whether there is a woman or a man in power.
We are going to attend to them.
President López Obrador, for the first time, has an equal cabinet, the same number of women and men. And there are women in the Secretariat of Security, Energy, Economy, and Public Education.
And at the same time, we have many women as governors, and that is thanks to Mexican legislation during the López Obrador presidency. [En 2019 México aprobó una ley de paridad]
Mexicans are now governed by many women. And that is a change.
I see that the girls are excited that a woman is going to be president. That changes the culture for women and for men.
And policies must be developed to reduce violence against women.
You are saying that Mexico is changing, that Mexico is going through a process of change in terms of the place that women occupy, the representation of women in politics, in business.
There are those who say that this is a very superficial facade, and that deep down the problems remain the same. And particularly in states like this. In the mountains of Veracruz or Chiapas for example, things remain largely the same as always.
Well, cultural changes don’t happen in a day, right?
Mexico is changing in many ways. What we call ‘the fourth transformation’ is changing the purpose of government, it is changing the economic model, it is changing the way people see their government. And it is changing for women too. It’s starting to change.
And of course, we have to develop policies.
I’m going to tell you something that a woman in Los Altos de Chiapas told me. She told me: “You are the unfulfilled dream of our grandmothers.” She was an indigenous woman.
If you pay attention to the heart or depth of this phrase, it is what is changing in Mexico.
Do you feel a lot of responsibility on your shoulders when women tell you that kind of thing in Mexico, in remote towns?
I feel responsibility because I am going to be the next president of Mexico. Of course I feel the responsibility, and I am willing to assume it.
You talk at length about the idea of a second floor or a second stage of the so-called “fourth transformation.” For an audience that doesn’t know what that means, for a global audience, can you try to explain what you mean when you use that phrase?
Well, first I have to explain what the fourth transformation means for us.
Mexico has had three transformations in its history: independence, the reform that divided the church from the State, and the third, which was the first social revolution in the world in the 20th century, the Mexican Revolution.
And the fourth transformation is this.
What is the essence of this transformation? Separate economic power from political power.
Economic power has its evils. And the government has to be directed above all to the poor people of Mexico. And by doing that, we will all be better off.
That is the fourth transformation. And it is peaceful, unlike the other three.
López Obrador laid the foundation on the first floor and we are going to build on this change that López Obrador has made in the country.
It means more rights. It means welfare state. It means that education, health, access to housing and a good salary are rights of Mexicans, they are not privileges.
That is the difference between neoliberalism and our model, which we call Mexican humanism.
Your critics would say that you are simply an extension of López Obrador’s political project, and that you yourself will end up simply being an extension of him, that you were hand-picked as his successor and that somehow your government will be just another López Obrador government.
What do you respond to that criticism?
That is the opinion of the opposition. I feel confident in myself. I don’t care about those things that the opposition says that mine would be another López Obrador government.
Of course I am from the same movement as López Obrador, we fought together for more than 20 years to have the government we have now and the opportunities and rights for Mexicans.
And, of course, I am going to live a different moment in history.
I am going to govern with the same principles, and that is good for Mexicans.
And we are going to have our own objectives, for example renewable energy and accelerating the transition. We are not going to live through the pandemic, let’s hope, so we can achieve more nearshoring (relocate foreign companies in the country), which is already happening right now in Mexico.
It is a very good moment for Mexico. Let’s build on what we have and put our own vision.
Assuming you win, you will inherit a country with serious difficulties as well.
I was at the event where you launched your Zócalo campaign and asked people what they would like to see improved in the next six years. They were obviously there as his supporters. Each and every one said safety.
Do you accept that López Obrador’s security policies have not really worked the way he expected?
And the figures continue to be shocking: 186,000 homicides during his government. It is a very serious situation.
The way we look at it is: what would have happened if López Obrador had not been in the presidency since 2018?
He changed the course of what we had had. The homicides were on an increasing trajectory. And he managed, in the early years, to stop the growth and now they are declining. This is very important. And we have to accelerate this decrease, and we have a project and a strategy.
I have the experience of what I did in Mexico City. I reduced homicides by 50% and other crimes by 60%. So we have a strategy.
What is different and people have to know this in Mexico and abroad is that we do not want war.
[Felipe] Calderón (president between 2006 and 2012) declared a war in our own country. And he put someone in charge of that war [Genaro García Luna] who is now in jail in the United States because he was directly related to criminals, to drug cartels.
Now we want to build peace. It’s a completely different approach, so it will probably take time, but it’s better.
Before there were no opportunities for young people. And now we are creating opportunities for young people. It is about continuing to address the cause of violence and at the same time reducing impunity in the country.
But I imagine that the security part will continue to be left in the hands of the army and the military. Do you intend to use the army and the military to the same extent as Mr. López Obrador?
Is different. When you declare war, you have permission to kill.
Calderón used the army to kill, without justice. He said at that moment ‘it doesn’t matter, there will be collateral damage’ and he was talking about Mexican lives.
What López Obrador is doing now, with the army as well, is building peace and building justice with institutions. It’s completely different.
There are some towns in Mexico that, if you take away the army, they have nothing.
We are not using the army as the country’s military. It’s that you have a force that you can use against the drug cartels, but seeking justice, to put a person in jail in our own system, not to kill someone without any trial.
We have to consolidate the National Guard. And it may be within the Secretariat of National Defense, but it has a different commander than the army.
In addition to the elections that will be held here very soon, there is also an election campaign in the United States.
Do you feel comfortable working with either of the two leading presidential candidates? Would you feel comfortable with President Trump? Could you work with President Biden?
We are going to be able to work with President Trump or with President Biden. López Obrador did it and we are going to do it.
We are the first trading partner of the United States at this moment. They need us and we need them economically.
And we have 40 million Mexicans living in the United States.
But when the rhetoric turns against Mexico, as it did during Trump’s time in the White House, how would you respond?
We are going to defend Mexicans always, Mexicans in the United States, Mexicans in Mexico or wherever they are.
There is going to be a lot of rhetoric in the US campaign. We always have to defend our country, our sovereignty. But we have to wait until November, when the elections are held.
And it’s not just rhetoric. There will be extreme pressure on the next president to do more to stop immigration passing through Mexican territory and heading to the United States.
Do you think your policy on that will be hardline? Are you planning to prevent people from passing through Mexico on their way north?
We are going to insist to the United States, whether with President Trump or President Biden, that the best policy is development cooperation.
President Biden said it when he was in Mexico City at the meeting with the Prime Minister of Canada [Justin Trudeau] and President López Obrador, that people do not move because they want to oh There is a very small percentage of people who move because they want to. They move by necessity, by economic necessity or by other needs.
We are going to continue telling the United States government that the best way to reduce migration is to invest in the places where people come from. And at some point I think they’re going to understand that.
One of the most polarizing issues in Mexico is abortion.
And, of course, that affects women throughout Mexico. And also in the United States, since many may come here to have abortions as the laws become stricter there. On a very divisive issue, what is your position on the legalization of abortion in Mexico?
The Supreme Court in Mexico said the opposite of the Supreme Court in the US. It is something that has already been decided.
[En septiembre de 2023, la Corte Suprema de México despenalizó el aborto en todo el país]
And your own position on the matter?
It has already been decided by the Supreme Court and the states have to develop laws regarding it.
But that’s not happening…
Yes it is happening. Many states in Mexico have decided, Mexico City did.
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