Mexico swears in Claudia Sheinbaum, its first woman president

Claudia Sheinbaum was sworn in as Mexico's first woman president yesterday, taking the oath of office as legislators chanted "Presidenta! Presidenta!"

The 62-year-old scientist-turned-politician receives a country with a number of immediate problems, also including a sluggish economy, unfinished building programs, rising debt and the hurricane-battered resort city of Acapulco.

In her inauguration speech, Sheinbaum said that she came to power accompanied by all of the women who have struggled in anonymity to make their way in Mexico, including "those who dreamed of the possibility that one day no matter if we were born as women or men we would achieve our dreams and desires without our sex determining our destiny."

Sheinbaum represents continuity with popular outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in whose cabinet she served. The only other candidate with a good chance of winning, conservative businesswoman Xóchitl Gálvez, had all-but guaranteed Mexico its first woman leader from this year's race.

Despite her pledge of continuity, Sheinbaum is a very different personality: a cautious scientist and ideological university leftist, as opposed to the outgoing president's chummy, everyman appeal.

Policies, though, are to remain explicitly unchanged, as the AP reports it.