Claudia Sheinbaum at a political rally on 12/10/23, Tlaxcala, MX. Essene Hernandez/Eyepix Group/Getty Images

On November 19, Dr Claudia Sheinbaum, the former mayor of Mexico City, became MORENA’s “pre-candidate,” guaranteeing that she will be the standard-bearer in the presidential election to be held on June 2, 2024. Days before, Clara Brugada, the head of the city’s Iztapalapa district, registered as the party’s pre-candidate for Mexico City mayor in elections to be held the same day.

There will also be female gubernatorial candidates in four other states. Building on the gender parity achieved in the Mexican Congress in the elections of 2018, the next chapter of MORENA’s history is set to be shaped by women.

The Post-’68 Generation

Sheinbaum and Brugada have much in common. Just a year apart in age (Sheinbaum is sixty-one and Brugada is sixty), both grew up in the turbulent generation following the twin massacres of Tlaltelolco 1968 and Corpus Cristi 1971. Both cut their teeth in left-wing militancy and activism, Sheinbaum as a student leader in the 1986–87 movement opposing one of the National Autonomous University’s periodic attempts to turn Mexico’s free public university model into a fee-paying one; Brugada defending housing rights in Iztapalapa, a sprawling district of nearly two million made up of many internal immigrants from the countryside. Both worked their way up through the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) before becoming founding members of MORENA in 2014. Both prioritized public transport, collaborating on the elevated trolley and cable car lines known as the Cablebus, which serve the marginalized communities on the outskirts of Mexico City.

The Mexico City mayoralty (in reality, governorship, as the federal district attained the status of state in 2016) is a natural springboard to a presidential candidacy. Sheinbaum has seized upon this political advantage by acting on a wide variety of fronts, building parks, schools, and a pair of universities, repairing housing damaged in the massive 2017 earthquake, investing in public Wifi, solar and hydrothermal energy, and designing a widely praised vaccine rollout for COVID. She made women safer with a network of brightly lit “safe routes” with emergency buttons, a dedicated hotline, women’s lawyers in public prosecutor’s offices, and the “aggressor leaves the house” law.

But Sheinbaum’s biggest calling card at the national level will undoubtedly be her crime-fighting success: where the federal government has struggled to contain cartel and organized crime-fueled violence, Mexico City has seen a 50-70 percent reduction in “high impact” crimes such as homicides, kidnapping, and human trafficking.

Sheinbaum Must Navigate the Pitfalls

Sheinbaum marks a break in questions of style. Where AMLO wields his regional Tabasco accent with aplomb, she speaks with the polished tones of the capital. In contrast to his folksy phraseology and fiery, naming-names rhetoric, Sheinbaum prefers a more measured discourse.

This very difference, however, entails its dangers. While measured tones work well in press conferences and one-on-one interviews, Sheinbaum has yet to find her footing before larger crowds, where she can often sound stiff and wooden.

Sheinbaum’s bet is clearly to replace immediate charisma with a sense of technical competence. But absent the communicational wizardry and ear to the ground that helped López Obrador get over so many humps in his administration, her manner could slip into a perception of being out of touch, not just “technical” but “technocratic.”

She has made a few policy and strategic missteps. But nothing has put as much as a dent in the sense of inevitability that surrounds Sheinbaum: a cross-section of polls consistently puts her twenty to thirty points ahead of the scandal-ridden, right-wing candidate Xóchitl Gálvez. Sheinbaum has been clever to frame her political philosophy as advocating for the expansion — not of the state —but of a series of positive rights: education, health, housing, culture, dignified employment at a fair wage, sustainable mobility, and a healthy environment.