Candidate with Bulgarian Roots Became Mexico's First Female President

World | June 3, 2024, Monday // 08:33
Bulgaria: Candidate with Bulgarian Roots Became Mexico's First Female President

Claudia Sheinbaum has been declared the winner of yesterday's presidential election in Mexico by the ruling party, Morena. Provisional results indicate that Sheinbaum leads her opponent, Xochitl Galvez, by more than 20%. Mario Delgado, Morena's leader, announced to supporters in Mexico City that Sheinbaum is winning by a "very large" margin.

Sheinbaum, a climatologist and former mayor of Mexico City, has been confirmed as the winner according to at least five exit polls. Polling agency Parametria predicted a landslide victory, with Sheinbaum receiving 56% of the vote. The opposition candidate, Xochital Galvez, received 30% of the vote, according to Reuters.

The provisional ballot count shows Sheinbaum with 59% of the votes, compared to 29% for Galvez, although only 5% of the votes have been counted so far. Galvez has not yet conceded defeat, urging his supporters to remain patient and wait for the official results.

Claudia Sheinbaum, who has Bulgarian roots, will become the first female president in Mexico's history and in North America. The 61-year-old led convincingly in public opinion polls and now faces the daunting challenge of addressing organized crime violence. The election campaign was marred by violence, with 38 candidates killed, and two people lost their lives on election day.

Her origin

Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo was born into a secular Jewish family in Mexico City, the capital. Her paternal Ashkenazi grandparents migrated from Lithuania to Mexico City in the 1920s, while her maternal grandparents were Sephardim who fled Sofia during the early 1940s to escape the Holocaust. According to "Dnevnik", she observes all Jewish holidays from both family lines.

Dr. Alexander Oscar explained to "Dnevnik" that "Pardo" is an old Jewish surname of Sephardic origin, likely derived from a Spanish/Ladino version of the Latin word for leopard. He noted that the name gained prominence during the time of Jewish communities' influence in Spain and later appeared in the Balkans after the expulsion of Jews in 1492.

Despite sharing the surname, the Sheinbaum family in Plovdiv, part of the Bulgarian Jewish community, is not related to Claudia Sheinbaum. However, her origins from a branch of the family in Sofia, which left Bulgaria before World War II, connect her to Bulgarian Jewish heritage, as stated by Oscar.

Given her background, she has been referred to as a "Bulgarian Jew," marking her as the first Jew elected to such high positions in Mexico. Her father, Carlos Sheinbaum Yoselevitz, was a notable chemical engineer, recognized for his contributions to Mexico's leather processing industry, while her mother, Annie Pardo Semo, was the first Sephardic Jewish woman admitted to the Mexican Academy of Sciences.

Sheinbaum's family had a history of left-wing activism, with her paternal grandfather involved in Communist Party activities and her parents participating in leftist movements during the 1960s. Despite their Jewish roots, the family distanced themselves from the Jewish community in Mexico City, relocating to the southern suburbs near the university where Ani worked.

Claudia, the second daughter, attended secular non-Jewish schools and pursued physics at UNAM, where she engaged in political activities. While her Jewish background remained largely unnoticed by the Mexican media, it gained attention in 2018 during her mayoral campaign when she shared her family's religious practices with a group of Jewish women.

At 61 years old, Scheinbaum served as mayor of Mexico City for five years before stepping down to focus on her political campaign. She was endorsed by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador as his successor after his six-year term expired, though ineligible for re-election.

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Tags: Mexico, Sheinbaum, election

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