Mexico will almost certainly have its first female president in 2024, after the governing Morena party and the opposition coalition both chose women as their candidates.
Former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum was named Morena’s candidate on Wednesday, despite runner-up Marcelo Ebrard’s last-minute denouncement of the process and demand for it to be redone.
Sheinbaum is a climate scientist-turned-politician who was widely believed to be the preferred choice of president Andrés Manuel López Obrador who is unable to run again.
…
Gálvez is a businesswoman who became a senator in 2018 and has seized media attention with her aspirational story of growing up with an Indigenous father and mestizo mother in Hidalgo state, before working her way through public university and into business and politics.
I don’t know those two, but the idea of a scientist as president sounds awesome.
Angela Merkel is a famous example of someone who has a doctorate in quantum chemistry and was a researcher before turning to politics.
It helped in some cases. E.g. the first thing the government did when faced with Covid was to ask experts and put it into the hand of the RKI with several people familiar with coronaviruses.
However, in other instances she understood the science and just chose to ignore it because of politics.
Understanding science is good, but you still need to act accordingly.
However, in other instances she understood the science and just chose to ignore it because of politics.
Do you have an example of that? I mean choosing politics over science doesnt immediately screams “wrong” to me
Nuclear energy.
She was at first in favour of keeping it, but after Fukushima and subsequent panic in Germany she U-turned and got out of it.
Now, I am aware that nuclear energy has issues, like the nuclear waste. However, we need something to tide us over until we fully transitioned into renewables and that something is now the shittiest coal we can get, And of course, at this point it’s way too late to reverse it again. We started to build down our nuclear facilities years ago and building them up again would not be worth it.
However, we should’ve not stopped using nuclear that early in the process of pushing renewable energy.
Mrs. Merkel was aware, but she rather went with the vox populi of fear of Fukushima.
I agree with you, but politics is complicated. If she felt like continuing to fight for nuclear at that time would be unpopular, it might not have been worth it. It probably would have made it impossible to achieve other goals.
Nuclear waste is better overall for the environment than coal ash ponds. I live near a coal power plant with those ponds. Not the prettiest sight to see and probably poisoning my local water table. Also, coal produces more nuclear radiation than nuclear power plants do.
I actually agree with Merkels decision.
Ideally a scientist would operate politically on the basis of improving society though objective, measurable and honest actions, however Sheinbaum is corrupt as they come, she’s pretty smart but she’s basically sold her soul to her party, which was founded by the current Mexican president, who has been dismantling as many autonomous bodies for checks and balances as well as transparency institutions as he can.
Sheinbaum is very likely to win since the president has a 2-3 hour live propaganda show almost every morning where he attacks journalists and the opposition and he makes cringe jokes.
We’ll have to see if once she gets executive power she starts acting for the betterment of society or if she continues following AMLO
You’re right on the money. She has always failed to distance from AMLO, since he basically appointed her as the Mexico City Mayor to begin with. I really hope, when the time comes, she distances herself from him. Fingers crossed.
The idea sounds great, but this person is not so. She is just a puppet to the current president
Among other things, this scientist has neglected mexicos city subway causing several accidents and failures.
I totally agree, but why would a good scientist stop researching?
Also we are speaking about real scientists, not the one mentioned in the article.
What do you mean “real” scientists?
She has a PhD in energy engineering and physics.
why would a good scientist stop researching?
Probably when you start to wonder if all your research is for nothing since nobody seems interested in enacting policy grounded in science.
Crazy! Just read this morning that Mexico descriminalized abortion in the whole country and now this! As a Mexican, I am kind of proud.
(Mexican too) is that right? I didn’t know that, I’m always kinda out of the loop about most things.
I just read it here on lemmy.
Mexico has always had some of the highest number of women in their legislature compared to the rest of the world.
It’s kind of surprising it took this long.
Did some wikipedia sleuthing on their politics.
Gálvez seems to have jumped from a conservative right-winger party to a progressive socdem/demsoc (wikipedia lists both) one and is running as an independent.
Sheinbaums background is in the progressive socdem/demsoc one
Right wing in mexico is not as extreme as the one in the US, though (even then I don’t like them), but what needs to be clear is that although the current party in position is very left (which is great) it’s not really progressive other than in labor areas. I don’t like sheinbaum specifically and I think morena could do better than her or the current president as it has shown from their legislative branch but politics in Mexico right now are very weird.
I agree with you on most points, but also consider PAN as the dollar store republicans, just not as open.
Didn’t the ruling party just decriminalize abortion? That’s pretty good and progressive.
A quick Google search says it was the Mexican Supreme Court.
The current president’s party grew so big that all other opposition parties are allying
Friendly reminder that having a woman president doesnt mean things will be different, and I really doubt they will.
For starters, one of them is partially responsible for the colapse of a school causing the death of 26 people and has left México city fall into disrepair for the last 5 years.
The other one is a demagogue who says she will fix the country because “she is diferent”, following the steps of our current president by fueling the “us vs them” rethoric he started/boosted.I’m getting Peña Bots vibes from your comment.
Peña es un pendejo títere del pri que solo vino a calentar la silla.
Si quieres discutir este tema usa argumentos. Tu intento de insultarme trae una vibra de chayoteroLmao.
Oh, phew! I first read that as “Mexico to set on fire first female president in 2024” Congrats Mexico. (For the female president, not the imaginary fire)
Looks like I’m moving to Mexico.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum was named Morena’s candidate on Wednesday, despite runner-up Marcelo Ebrard’s last-minute denouncement of the process and demand for it to be redone.
Gálvez is a businesswoman who became a senator in 2018 and has seized media attention with her aspirational story of growing up with an Indigenous father and mestizo mother in Hidalgo state, before working her way through public university and into business and politics.
In a matter of months Gálvez has risen to become the candidate of a broad opposition coalition that includes the PAN, PRI and PRD, the country’s three oldest mainstream parties.
Both Sheinbaum and Gálvez were chosen through a series of polls intended to show greater transparency and public participation than in the past, when presidents had the habit of handpicking their successors.
The opposition coalition never conducted the final consultation of the process it set out, because another candidate, Beatriz Paredes, withdrew, thus handing the candidacy to the frontrunner Gálvez.
Ebrard’s very public dissent is also an early sign of the trouble Sheinbaum may face to maintain cohesion within the Morena party once López Obrador leaves power.
The original article contains 712 words, the summary contains 189 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Yeah but are they going to be good presidents? That’s all that matter in the end
I heard this same story before in the US in 2016. It doesn’t matter what the polls say, you have to assume that your candidate is actually behind in the race and they’re going to lose unless you do everything you can do right now to help them win.
The main parties chose women, not just one.
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Oh, neat!
*neato
Both candidates are women. So regardless of who wins, they will have a woman President.
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Just like with hillary, switching up the sex of the president is just a ploy to make people think things will be different.
They won’t be. Can’t wait to see how cozy these candidates get with the cartel.
Women having power is not just a ploy, it’s just something that makes sense since it’s half the candidate pool and they are just as qualified.
I wish you were right.
Unfortunately, just having the first woman president is enough to get some people to vote for them.
Well yeah, because representation and identification matters to people. If you’ve never had female leaders due to bigotry, of course there’s an incentive to push for ones, otherwise gender equality will never establish itself. And it’s not like there aren’t plenty of good female candidates in general, so why not try to actively support one.
It’s fair for people to think that way. It’s just possible for such feelings to be taken advantage of to fool people into thinking there will be change.
