'Forbes' magazine chooses Claudia Sheinbaum as the fourth most powerful woman in the world

Forbes magazine has named the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, the fourth most powerful woman in the world. For the media, the president has been “a bright point” in a current political panorama that is “increasingly darker for women.” Only three figures have remained above her: the leader of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the leader of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, and the Italian prime minister, the far-right Giorgia Meloni. You have to go down to fifth place – occupied by Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors – to find a profile that does not respond to high public institutions. Forbes' annual list selects the 100 women that the media considers have played a role important today under four parameters: money, the media, its impact and spheres of influence. In the classification are a select group of women who, together, have a collective economic power of 33 trillion dollars and influence more than 1,000 million people, one eighth of the total world population. This is the president's debut in the select list. “Just two months into her mandate, Sheinbaum has confronted Donald Trump over his tariff threats, positioning herself as one of the first and firmest political opponents of the president-elect,” the magazine highlights. Among the challenges that the Mexican president must take on is maintaining the support that led her to the presidency. Sheinbaum assumed the presidency of Mexico on October 1 after an overwhelming electoral victory four months earlier. Nearly 35.5 million votes, almost 60% of Mexican voters. She is the most voted president in Mexican history. A doctor and former head of government of the country's capital, the leftist politician became the first woman to assume the highest position in the Republic in its 200 years of independence. Until then, 65 men had passed through the presidential chair. In 2024, the world will have 26 heads of State and Government, below the 38 women who held these positions of power a year before. Women and Foreign Policy researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Linda Robinson says in an interview with Forbes that this decline is due to what she calls “systemic headwinds with democratic decline and the increase in the effects of viral technology. A fact that, she says, women leaders must face when they run for office. In recent years, the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, has occupied a place among the top five women on the list. Her defeat in the US elections against Trump last month has been a blow to her power of influence and she has been excluded from the ranking. The same has happened with other great American leaders, such as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield.