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, Agence France-Presse reported.
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 city with between 47.5% and 55.5% of the vote, according to the polling firm Mitofsky, AFP reported.
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 nonetheless 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 won the presidential race in landslide Sunday, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
She was among the first politicians to leave Mexico's established left-wing party, the Party of the Democratic Revolution, 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, which 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, according to AFP, that 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, AFP reported.
She vehemently denies responsibility and accuses her opponents of exploiting the tragedy for political reasons.
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.
When Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected Mexico City mayor in 2000, he named Sheinbaum his environment secretary.
