Mexico shatters women's glass ceiling

I voted for a better future. Let's change things.

Mexico has shattered its glass ceiling, as Jewish Claudia Sheinbaum was inaugurated on Oct. 1st, 2024 (Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year), as the country's first female president.

As president, Sheinbaum is expected to largely follow the mandates of her predecessor, former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Both are members of the left-wing Morena political party, and López Obrador was considered one of the most progressive Mexican leaders in decades.

• Morena ("brunette") is a strange name for a party because it is the feminine form of the Spanish word moreno, which means "dark." It's as if white Jewish Sheinbaum is now the head of the non-white, the dark-skin party. What's in a name? It's only a name. Let's look into it a little more: Morena (political party). Ah, it's just an abbreviation that sounds like the word not the word itself. But it would be as if the Democrats called themselves the PINKS (Progressive Incel Non-KisserS) and the Republicans the NAZIS (Nice All'american Zamboni Ice'eaterS). It sounds accurate but is misleading.

!Que viva Mexico! ("Long live Mexico!")

Pres. Sheinbaum will have one major difference from López Obrador, though, as Mexico's new president will have a nearly unprecedented level of power at her disposal.

This comes as the result of several factors, including the weakening of Mexico's judiciary and sweeping congressional control by the Morena party.

Despite this, Pres. Sheinbaum may still be facing an uphill battle to fix the many problems facing her country.

Why will Sheinbaum be such a powerful president?

Mexico is big, young, and exotic

It is partly because she is taking over a "government utterly dominated by the ruling Morena party," said The Conversation. The party has existed for just over 10 years [when for 75+ years the PRI ruled Mexican politics], but "has exploited pervasive public disillusionment with the more established parties."

As a result, the party has solid majorities in both chambers of Mexico's Congress; three-quarters of the country's 32 state governors are also from the Morena party. 

This gubernatorial and congressional consolidation, completed by the still-popular López Obrador's coalition, means Pres. Sheinbaum "begins her term in an extremely powerful position," said The Conversation.

The Morena party is "now so dominant that Mexicans are likening the new government to the one-party system that ruled for most of the 20th century," said The Washington Post. [That would be the PRI.]

Pres. Sheinbaum's power will also be boosted by López Obrador's "judicial overhaul that will over the next three years replace all of the country's judges with new jurists elected by popular vote," said Reuters.

This could lead to a highly politicized judiciary that works in Pres. Sheinbaum's favor. Mexico "will be transformed, for all practical purposes, into a one-party autocracy," former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo said at The Economist.

[Seems like Trumpism is catching on not only in the Philippines and other authoritarian European countries, but right in our back yard.] More

• Mexico's first woman president has unprecedented power but an uncertain future (The Week US)
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• Justin Klawans, The Week US via MSN, 10/3/24; Crystal Q., Pfc. Sandoval, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly