Claudia Sheinbaum, a Jewish scientist, environmentalist and left-wing politician, became the first woman ever to be elected Mexico City mayor on Sunday, according to exit polls.
Sheinbaum, 56, has made a rapid political rise to lead North America’s largest city — though it has not been without controversy.
She won the election to lead the capital with between 47.5 and 55.5 percent of the vote, according to the polling firm Mitofsky.
She will not be the first woman to govern Mexico City — Rosario Robles held the job on an interim basis from 1999 to 2000, after her boss, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, resigned to run for president.
But it is a historic electoral win in a country with deep-rooted problems of gender inequality and violence against women.
Sheinbaum surged into office on the coattails of the anti-establishment leftist who looks likely to win the presidential race, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
She was among the first politicians to leave Mexico’s established left-wing party, the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), and join Lopez Obrador’s breakaway, Morena, when he formally launched it in 2014.
The following year, she won election as district mayor of Mexico City’s Tlalpan neighborhood, Lopez Obrador’s own district and one of the 16 “delegations” that make up the sprawling capital of more than nine million people.
That was the launch pad for her mayoral campaign — but she has been embroiled in controversy along the way.
Tlalpan was one of the areas hardest hit when a 7.1-magnitude earthquake devastated central Mexico on September 19, 2017.
Sheinbaum’s district became the center of world attention when the Rebsamen elementary school collapsed in the quake, killing 19 children and seven adults inside.
It later emerged the district had granted dodgy construction permits to the private school’s owner — who is today on the run from the law — allowing her to build an apartment for herself on top of the building, which destabilized the structure.
A group of victims’ families has brought criminal charges over the case, and wants Sheinbaum to face investigation.
She vehemently denies responsibility, and accuses her opponents of exploiting the tragedy for political reasons.
But she has been the target of unrelenting anger from victims’ families and their sympathizers — including on election day.
“Murderer!” a protester shouted at her after she cast her ballot.
Activist origins
Born into a family of scientists, Sheinbaum studied physics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, earning a doctorate in energy engineering and going on to work as a consultant for the United Nations.
She was active in the university’s student movement, which rose up against an unpopular series of reforms at the institution in 1986.
She was one of many veterans of the movement to go into politics and help launch the PRD in 1989 — the main opposition party in what was then a one-party state.
She married fellow student activist Carlos Imaz in 1987.
Imaz was among the most recognizable faces of the Mexican left, also governing the Tlalpan district, until in 2004, he was one of several top officials caught on camera accepting large sums of cash.
He avoided jail time, but resigned and faded from politics. The couple separated in 2016. They have a daughter.
When Lopez Obrador was elected Mexico City mayor in 2000, he named Sheinbaum his environment minister.
She followed the fiery leader when he split with the PRD to found Morena, and is seen as a close ally, winning the party’s mayoral nomination in August over the man who was considered the favorite, veteran politician Ricardo Monreal. — Sofia Miselem, AFP

Europe is “possibly as bad as China” on trade, US President Donald Trump said in an interview broadcast Sunday, with trade wars emerging against both the Asian giant as well as longtime allies in Europe and Canada.
“The European Union is possibly as bad as China, only smaller,” Trump said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” program.
“They send a Mercedes in, we can’t send our cars in. Look what they do to our farmers. They don’t want our farm products. Now in all fairness they have their farmers… But we don’t protect ours and they protect theirs,” he said.
Trump had already threatened tariffs on cars imported from the European Union, in response to the EU’s retaliatory tariffs last week on iconic US products including bourbon, jeans and motorcycles.
The EU retaliation came after Trump’s administration on June 1 struck Europe as well as allies in Canada, Mexico and elsewhere with tariffs on aluminum and steel.
Canada’s retaliatory tariffs take effect Sunday against American products including Florida orange juice, ketchup and Kentucky bourbon.
Canada and the US are among the world’s largest trading partners, with an estimated $673.9 billion in goods and services exchanged in 2017, with the US scoring a small surplus ($8.4 billion), according to US government data.
At Trump’s insistence, Canada, Mexico and the US are renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement.
“NAFTA, I could sign it tomorrow but I’m not happy with it. I want to make it more fair, OK?” Trump said, adding that he wants to wait until “after the election.”
Trump’s Republicans are fighting to retain control of Congress in November midterm elections.
In the interview the president again complained about Canada’s protected dairy industry, saying “that’s not fair.”
Against China, the world’s second-largest economy, the White House in mid-June announced stiff 25 percent tariffs on Chinese imports, sparking immediate retaliation from Beijing.
Trump on Wednesday said he supported tougher restrictions on foreign investment in sensitive technology, as well as export controls on those goods, but he stopped short of imposing specific restrictions on China.
Asked about that decision, Trump said in the interview that he is not backing down on China tariffs.
“No, no, no, no,” he said, noting that more tariffs could be imposed if there is no deal with China.
“I will tell you, China wants to make a deal and so do I, but it’s got to be a fair deal for this country,” he said.
The US has complained about Chinese policies that Washington said either forced companies to relinquish key technology or allowed China to steal it outright.
The president announced 25 percent import tariffs on hundreds of Chinese products to pressure the country to alter its practices. Those tariffs are due to take effect July 6.
That came on top of the tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum that went into effect in late March — measures that prompted Beijing to slap punitive duties on 128 US goods, including pork, wine and certain pipes. — AFP