Mexico elects Claudia Sheinbaum as its first woman president
Mexico City (AP): Mexico's projected presidential winner Claudia Sheinbaum will become the first woman president in the country's 200-year history.
The climate scientist and former Mexico City mayor said on Sunday night that her two competitors had called her and conceded her victory.
“I will become the first woman president of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said with a smile, speaking at a downtown hotel shortly after electoral authorities announced a statistical sample showed she held an irreversible lead.
“I don't make it alone. We've all made it, with our heroines who gave us our homeland, with our mothers, our daughters and our granddaughters.”
“We have demonstrated that Mexico is a democratic country with peaceful elections,” she said.
The National Electoral Institute's president said Sheinbaum had between 58.3% and 60.7% of the vote, according to a statistical sample. Opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez had between 26.6% and 28.6% of the vote and Jorge Álvarez Máynez had between 9.9% and 10.8% of the vote.
The preliminary count, which started off very slowly, put Sheinbaum 27 points ahead of Gálvez with 42% of polling place tallies counted shortly after her victory speech.
The governing party candidate campaigned on continuing the political course set over the last six years by her political mentor President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
His anointed successor, the 61-year-old Sheinbaum led the campaign wire-to-wire despite a spirited challenge from Gálvez. This was the first time in Mexico that the two main opponents were women.
“Of course, I congratulate Claudia Sheinbaum with all my respect who ended up the winner by a wide margin," López Obrador said shortly after electoral authorities announcement. "She is going to be Mexico's first (woman) president in 200 years.”
If the margin holds it would approach his landslide victory in 2018. López Obrador won the presidency after two unsuccessful tries with 53.2% of the votes, in a three-way race where National Action took 22.3% and the Institutional Revolutionary Party took 16.5%.
Earlier, Gálvez wrote on the social platform X, “The votes are there. Don't let them hide them.”
Sheinbaum is unlikely to enjoy the kind of unquestioning devotion that López Obrador has enjoyed. Both belong to the governing Morena party.
In Mexico City's main colonial-era main plaza, the Zocalo, Sheinbaum's lead did not initially draw the kind of cheering, jubilant crowds that greeted López Obrador's victory in 2018.
Fernando Fernández, a chef, 28, joined the relatively small crowd, hoping for a Sheinbaum victory, but even he acknowledged there were problems.
“You vote for Claudia out of conviction, for AMLO,” Fernández said, referring to López Obrador by his initials, as most Mexicans do. But his highest hope is that Sheinbaum can “improve what AMLO couldn't do, the price of gasoline, crime and drug trafficking, which he didn't combat even though he had the power.”
Also in the crowd, Itxel Robledo, 28, a business administrator, expressed hope that Sheinbaum would do what López Obrador didn't. “What Claudia has to do is put professionals in every area.”
Elsewhere in the city, Yoselin Ramírez, 29, said she voted for Sheinbaum, but split her vote for other posts because she didn't want anyone holding a strong majority.
“I don't want everything to be occupied by the same party, so there can be a little more equality,” she said without elaborating.
The main opposition candidate, Gálvez, a tech entrepreneur and former senator, tried to seize on Mexicans' concerns about security and promised to take a more aggressive approach toward organized crime.
Nearly 100 million people were registered to vote, but turnout appeared to be slightly lower than in past elections. Voters were also electing governors in nine of the country's 32 states, and choosing candidates for both houses of Congress, thousands of mayorships and other local posts, in the biggest elections the nation has seen and ones that have been marked by violence.
The elections were widely seen as a referendum on López Obrador, a populist who has expanded social programs but largely failed to reduce cartel violence in Mexico. His Morena party currently holds 23 of the 32 governorships and a simple majority of seats in both houses of Congress. Mexico's constitution prohibits the president's reelection.
Sheinbaum promised to continue all of López Obrador's policies, including a universal pension for the elderly and a program that pays youths to apprentice.
Gálvez, whose father was Indigenous Otomi, rose from selling snacks on the street in her poor hometown to start her own tech firms. A candidate running with a coalition of major opposition parties, she left the Senate last year to focus her ire on López Obrador's decision to avoid confronting the drug cartels through his “hugs not bullets” policy. She pledged to more aggressively go after criminals.
The persistent cartel violence and Mexico's middling economic performance were the main issues on voters' minds.
Julio García, a Mexico City office worker, said he was voting for the opposition in Mexico City's central San Rafael neighborhood. “They've robbed me twice at gunpoint. You have to change direction, change leadership,” the 34-year-old said. “Continuing the same way, we're going to become Venezuela.”
On the fringes of Mexico City in the neighborhood of San Andres Totoltepec, electoral officials filed past 34-year-old homemaker Stephania Navarrete, who watched dozens of cameramen and electoral officials gathering where frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum was set to vote.
Navarrete said she planned to vote for Sheinbaum despite her own doubts about López Obrador and his party.
“Having a woman president, for me as a Mexican woman, it's going to be like before when for the simple fact that you say you are a woman you're limited to certain professions. Not anymore.”
She said the social programs of Sheinbaum's mentor were crucial, but added that deterioration of cartel violence in the past few years was her primary concern in this election.
“That is something that they have to focus more on,” she said. “For me security is the major challenge. They said they were going to lower the levels of crime, but no, it was the opposite, they shot up. Obviously, I don't completely blame the president, but it is in a certain way his responsibility.”
In Iztapalapa, Mexico City's largest borough, Angelina Jiménez, a 76-year-old homemaker, said she came to vote “to end this inept government that says we're doing well and (still) there are so many dead.”
She said the violence plaguing Mexico really worried her so she planned to vote for Gálvez and her promise to take on the cartels. López Obrador "says we're better and it's not true. We're worse.”
López Obrador claims to have reduced historically high homicide levels by 20% since he took office in December 2018. But that's largely a claim based on a questionable reading of statistics. The real homicide rate appears to have declined by only about 4% in six years.
Just as the upcoming November rematch between U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump has underscored deep divisions in the U.S., Sunday's election revealed how severely polarized public opinion is in Mexico over the direction of the country, including its security strategy and how to grow the economy.
Beyond the fight for control of Congress, the race for Mexico City mayor — a post now considered equivalent to a governorship — is also important. Sheinbaum is just the latest of many Mexico City mayors, including López Obrador, who went on to run for president. Governorships in large, populous states such as Veracruz and Jalisco are also drawing interest.
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Karnataka's BioEconomy reaches USD 39.2 billion, says report
Bengaluru (PTI): Karnataka's BioEconomy has reached USD 39.2 billion in 2025, marking strong growth from previous years and reaffirming the state's leadership position nationally, according to an official report released on Monday.
The Karnataka Innovation and Technology Society (KITS), under the Department of Electronics, IT, Biotechnology and Science & Technology, unveiled the Karnataka BioEconomy Report 2025 in collaboration with the Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises.
The report that was released by IT Minister Priyank Kharge stated that the state contributes around 21 per cent of India's BioEconomy and accounts for over 10 per cent of Karnataka's GSDP.
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According to the report, the BioEconomy has expanded from USD 31.0 billion in 2023, reflecting 26.5 per cent cumulative growth, and is now adding nearly USD 10 billion every quarter to the state's GDP.
BioPharma remains the anchor with over 40 per cent share (about USD 16.44 billion), driven by biologics, biosimilars, vaccines and diagnostics, it said.
"BioIndustrial biotechnology has emerged as the fastest-growing segment (about USD 11.46 billion, around 29 per cent share), led by fermentation-based industries, biofuels, enzymes and sustainable materials," the report stated.
BioServices accounts for about 25.8 per cent share, while BioAgri contributes to sustainable agriculture and input innovation, it added.
The report said BioEconomy growth is becoming increasingly multi-regional. While Bengaluru Urban accounts for about 54 per cent of the state's BioEconomy, Mysuru contributes around 8.7 per cent, while Belagavi and Dakshina Kannada together account for over 9 per cent. Northern districts remain the Agri-biotechnology belt.
As many as 218 new biotech startups were added in 2025, taking the cumulative total to 1,451 startups, with over 75 per cent focused on life sciences and health-tech. Bengaluru accounts for about 54 per cent of startups, it stated.
Between January 2024 and October 2025, the report stated that Karnataka attracted USD 1.14 billion across around 40 deals spanning BioPharma, MedTech, precision fermentation, digital health and AgriBio.
Minister Kharge said, "With our BioEconomy crossing USD 39 billion and contributing over 10 per cent to our GSDP, biotechnology is no longer confined to laboratories - it is now a central driver of economic growth, industrial innovation and societal impact."
He said that the state government's focus is on building a full-spectrum biomanufacturing economy by supporting deep-tech startups, strengthening innovation infrastructure, and ensuring that growth reaches beyond Bengaluru to every region of the state.
