The two appear an unlikely political pair: he a shopkeeper’s son from rural southern Mexico, she a globally recognized scientist from the capital.

He is outgoing and folksy, a larger-than-life figure comfortable pressing the flesh and mingling with crowds. Her reserved manner and lack of charisma feed the notion that she is distant and arrogant.

When it comes to their politics, however, it is difficult to distinguish Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Claudia Sheinbaum, whose long history together has uniquely positioned her to succeed him as the country’s president next year.

Sheinbaum, who would be the first woman to hold the job, has cast her candidacy as a victory for feminism.

“Mexico is no longer written with the M of machismo,” she told tens of thousands of supporters gathered in the capital this month as she resigned from her job as Mexico City mayor to formally enter the race for president. “But rather M for mother, for mujer” — woman.

“Claudia is not questioned for being a woman, but rather for mimicking a man and transforming herself to please AMLO,” tweeted Denise Dresser, a professor of political science at Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico and fierce critic of the populist president. “Nothing is more contrary to the agenda of autonomy/feminine empowerment that marks a new generation of women.”

The 60-year-old Sheinbaum would also be the first president from Mexico’s small Jewish community.

Though she spent two decades in academia before starting her political career, she comes from a tradition of political engagement.

Both her parents were active in the signature Mexican student movement of 1968, best known for the infamous Tlatelolco massacre in which Mexican security forces killed scores of protesters in the capital.

As a high schooler, Sheinbaum participated in protests against the exclusion of students, many of them poor, from higher education. As a student at the Autonomous University of Mexico, or UNAM, she was part of a movement against a plan to raise fees at the public institution.

And her first husband was a leader in Mexico’s Democratic Revolution Party, which was formed in 1989 out of frustration on the left with the authoritarian rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which held an iron grip on Mexican governance for most of the 20th century.

Among the former PRI stalwarts who defected was López Obrador.

Sheinbaum, who spent four years at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on her way to earning a doctorate in energy engineering, was teaching at UNAM in the 1990s when a mutual friend introduced her to him.

When López Obrador was elected mayor of Mexico City in 2000, he launched Sheinbaum’s political career by making her secretary of environment for the capital.

Photos from that era show the tousle-haired academic smiling alongside the dashing insurgent politician.

She later joined his breakaway political group, the National Regeneration Movement, known as Morena, and was elected in 2015 as borough president of Tlalpan, a district in southern Mexico City.

Three years later, she was elected mayor of Mexico City and he was elected president.

Unlike her mentor, Sheinbaum is an uninspiring public speaker, sometimes drifting into techno-talk and utopian paens to her hometown.

“She would put Ghandi to sleep,” wrote columnist Juan Ignacio Zavala in El Financiero, referring to the famously truncated slumber habits of the late Indian leader.

Dedicated to her work, Sheinbaum has only offered rare glimpses into her personal life.

One instance came last June when she was recuperating from COVID-19 and posted a Facebook video displaying her modest apartment in southern Mexico City. The flat features shelves filled with books, tabletops brimming with family snapshots and paintings by Mexican artists. She also strummed a guitar, recalling that, as a child, her parents had taken her to guitar lessons.

Sheinbaum has enthusiastically assumed López Obrador’s crusade against corruption and “neoliberalism” — the theory that free-market capitalism should reign supreme in economic decision-making.

“I am of the left,” Sheinbaum said in a brief interview with The Times. “The right, above all, thinks that the market is going to resolve all problems, and that the state has no responsibility. We think the state has responsibility to provide education, healthcare, housing and generate better conditions of life.”

She parts ways with the president on some issues. In contrast to López Obrador, who has spent billions of dollars in efforts to revive Mexico’s state-owned oil company, she is a vocal supporter of renewable energy. And during the pandemic she wore a mask and shut down businesses as he downplayed the threat.

But any differences have never seemed to dim López Obrador’s affection.

With Mexican presidents limited to one six-year term, he has declared that his Morena party will hold a series of internal polls to determine who will succeed him. There will be no direct vote.

The presidential election is to be held next June. But with the president carrying a 60% approval rating and the opposition deeply fragmented, many observers view the party’s primary contest as the real competition for who will be Mexico’s next leader. The Morena primary campaign officially kicked off this week.

“What’s in play is a lot,” wrote columnist Leo Zuckermann in Excelsior newspaper. “Power at the highest level.”

The president is widely expected to have the final say on Sept. 6, when Morena plans to unveil its nominee.

“Mr. López Obrador will definitely name his successor,” said Tony Payan, who heads the Mexico Center at Rice University. “This is his political party, and he makes his decisions based on loyalty. Claudia has not deviated one iota from what he says. She has parroted, repeated and supported everything he has said.”

Asked about her status as the presumptive choice of López Obrador, Sheinbaum said: “It would be an honor to be the favorite of the president.”

Her most formidable competitor is Marcelo Ebrard, who is also a former Mexico City mayor and served as foreign secretary in López Obrador’s administration before resigning this month to launch his candidacy.

All potential successors have hastened to stress their proximity to the indomitable phenomenon that is López Obrador.

Ebrard — more conservative politically than the president — vowed to create a Cabinet-level ministry to defend López Obrador’s various mega-projects.

Polls have been showing Sheinbaum with a comfortable lead of 10 points or more against Ebrard.

“Closest to AMLO,” reads one Sheinbaum campaign pamphlet.

    • @[email protected]
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      22 years ago

      The article explains it well, but TL;DR: Mexico doesn’t have presidential reelection, choosing Claudia Sheimbaum, someone completely submissive to the current president, will be like prolonging AMLO’s grip another six years.

      Why is AMLO bad? He’s following every step of the Latin American Dictator manual:

      • Giving unprecedented power and wealth to the army (who has to obey him without questioning).

      • Frequently stating that he wants in his cabinet people of 90% loyalty, 10% capacity (because them being inept makes it easy for him to replace them if they don’t obey him)

      • Wasting or opaquely handling enormous amount of tax money, while at the same time lying about using “Franciscan austerity” to optimize the budget, while at the same time hiding how he handles money because “national security”.

      • I could go on and on, suffice to say he’s been the absolute worst president this century, and one of the worst of the past.

      • AMLO is famous for lying and breaking the laws without consequences, even more now that he’s the law. He has weakened and destroyed institutions abducting wastefulness and corruption, but his whole plan is concentrating power on himself, making Mexico his property.

      Why is Claudia Sheimbaum a mini AMLO?

      • She has violated the electoral law by using tax money to put billboards all over the country promoting her to president.

      • As mayor of Mexico City, the subway has had two major incidents where lives were lost. It was caused for lack of funding and maintenance, but she and AMLO insisted it was sabotage from their “adversaries”, put the army to guard the metro, and let the issues cool down. Money that was supposed to maintain the metro has disappeared.

      • AMLO has a sick game of chairs with his three pre-candidates, Claudia Sheimbaum, Adán Augusto, and Marcelo Ebrard. All three have to kiss his feet if they want his blessing, he’s using that to keep them in check, but of all the three, Sheimbaum is the most submissive. Campaigns aren’t allowed to start until next year, but they’ve been illegally playing this game a year before, to gain mind share.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        Well, this is eye opening. Thanks! I was aware that he wasn’t liked by everyone but his story seems familiar, we had a wannabe dictator a couple years ago, but he was arrested on drug trafficking charges.