POSTED BY: COLIN MCCLELLAND JUNE 3, 2024

Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist, won Mexico’s election to become the country’s first female leader and is expected to continue the anti-mining policies of outgoing President Andres Manuel López Obrador.

Sheinbaum secured the most ballots on Sunday in the nation’s 200-year democratic history, as much as 61% of the vote, according to a sample count by the country’s electoral authority. The tally also predicts her coalition of parties will secure two-thirds of both houses of Congress, allowing it to change the constitution without the opposition’s consent.

“The country’s security situation and rising fiscal deficit, coupled with the strengthening of the Mexican peso, will represent critical challenges for her presidency,” Colin Hamilton, BMO Capital Markets director of Commodities Research, wrote in a note on Monday.

“From a mining sector perspective it is unclear whether this will mean any lifting of restrictions, such as the de facto ban on new open pit mines, though we would see this as only a possibility rather than a probability in the near term.”

Sheinbaum, a former mayor of Mexico City who has cited López Obrador as her mentor, campaigned on a platform of affordability and promises to tackle corruption. The election saw the murders of 32 candidates as drug cartels seek to control political outcomes.

Please continue reading at the source, The Northern Miner: https://www.northernminer.com/news/new-technocrat-mexican-leader-unlikely-pro-mining-even-as-she-replaces-whim-and-bombast/1003868040/