Claudia Sheinbaum: 3 numbers that show the magnitude of her victory (and why she may have more power than AMLO)

Many adjectives can be used to describe Claudia Sheinbaum’s victory in Mexico’s presidential elections this Sunday: overwhelming, overwhelming, enormous.

And of course historic, because she is the first woman to preside over the Mexican State.

In a country with alarming rates of femicides, where sexist culture continues to mark a part of social relations, Sheinbaum’s victory, beyond her positions on feminism, is a turning point in the fight for female representation in politics.

But Sheinbaum’s victory is also historic, due to the magnitude with which it occurred.

Judging by preliminary results, the ruling coalition appears to have won in three key political arenas in addition to the presidency.

First: Mexico City, which was already governed by them—by Sheinbaum—and will now be led by Clara Brugada, a bold social leader.

Second: the governorates, since everything indicates that the ruling party, Morena, retained power in five of the nine governorates that were at stake and with that it maintains between 23 and 25 of the 32 throughout the country.

And third and perhaps most important: Congress, because the movement led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been the most important political force in Mexico for at least six years, but until now it had not had qualified majorities in Congress. That, it seems, has just changed.

So: in this presidential country with a centralist tradition despite its federalism, every president, no matter how weak, is powerful.

Claudia will be super powerful. And in the three numbers that follow, that power can be summarized.

The first president in the history of Mexico has also been the candidate who has achieved the most votes in the democratic history of Mexico.

If the trend of the data announced by the National Electoral Institution is confirmed, Sheinbaum could have received up to 35 million votes.

AMLO, in 2018, obtained just over 30 million and it had been the most voted in history.

It could be argued that the demographic growth of the population means that every six years in Mexico the winning candidate is the most voted in history.

But a victory by the difference with which Sheinbaum won is unusual not only in Mexico, but in any country.

And that leads us to contemplate the difference with the second in the race, former senator Xóchitl Gálvez.

AMLO won in 2018 by a margin of 31 percentage points. Sheinbaum, according to pre-military results, appears to have won by more than 32%.

This shows, on the one hand, that the former mayor knew how to connect with the population, give the idea that she is a responsible and reliable politician and, above all, that she can follow the policies of her predecessor.

Because the difference with Gálvez is also explained by the popularity of the outgoing president.

Almost all the presidents who had to govern their countries during the pandemic were defeated in their attempts at re-election or continuity. AMLO, on the other hand, leaves the presidency with more than 60% popularitythanks to his charisma, programs to increase income for the poorest and the stability of the economy.

And a third variable that explains the comfort of Sheinbaum’s victory is the failure of the opposition, which came to the elections divided, trying to capitalize on AMLO’s high popularity and with a charismatic candidate but without a clear message or proposals.

The results announced on Sunday show that the ruling party was very close to achieving qualified majorities in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

The coalition obtained at least 334 seats in Deputies and between 76 and 88 in the Senate. For qualified majorities they need 334 in the first and 85 in the second. And of course, many will want to join the all-powerful party.

Having two-thirds of the Congress of the Union is something that no party had achieved since the 1980s, when the Institutional Revolutionary Party dominated, for many authoritarianly, Mexican politics.

The movement inaugurated by AMLO proposes a transformation of the country as relevant as independence, the liberal reforms of the 19th century and the Mexican Revolution. That’s why they call themselves the Fourth Transformation: the 4T.

But, to transform a country, the Constitution must be modified. Many of the reforms that AMLO proposed were truncated in Congress and in the courts. Judicial, pension and energy reforms remained on paper.

Now, it seems, Sheinbaum is going to be able to. The Morena coalition also wants the judges of the Republic to be elected by popular vote and to modify the electoral laws. At least that’s what AMLO was looking for.

“This is an enormous victory for the Mexican left,” says Carlos Pérez Ricart, political scientist at the Public Center for Research and Higher Education (CIDE).

“Now you can show that can govern and executealthough so much power is also a risk for a hegemonic party, because you can transform a lot, but you also have to know how to manage it.”

The last time a party had so much power in Mexico, which was the case of the PRI, the story did not end well, but in what some called the “perfect dictatorship.”

The super-powered Claudia Sheinbaum will have tools to fight poverty, violence and corruption. But she will also be a test for Mexican democracy.

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