I, Claudia: Mexico’s new leader

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The Economist. Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm Jason Palmer.

And I'm Rosie Blore. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Well, hello Rosie. The Atlantic hurricane season has just begun and if the forecasts are to be believed, there will be plenty of big storms ahead. We look at the climatic conditions that together make this an unusually dangerous year.

And in one of the more awkward moments of my journalistic career, I become the subject of a piece, thankfully only briefly, to say hello as your new co host of the Intelligence. But first, Mexico has elected its first female president. Early results suggest Claudia Sheinbaum, a former mayor of Mexico City from the ruling Morena Party, has won around 60% of the vote. Gracias. Oy al pueblo de Mexico es se es tu triunfo. She declared her victory to an excited crowd. This is your triumph, she told her supporters. We made history. But it's not exactly clear what kind of history Shanebaum will make. Her win is less about her credentials but than those of her predecessor. Andres manuel Lopez Obrador. AMLO, as he's known, is a charismatic populist elected in 2018, promising to address corruption, inequality and insecurity. But Mexicans are deeply divided on whether he solved those problems or added to them. Shane Baum inherits that legacy. A divided country with a very long to do list.

It's the early hours of the morning here in Mexico City of the day of the election.

Sarah Burke is the Economist's Mexico bureau chief.

It's a huge moment for the country voting for two candidates, two female candidates who had very different visions of whether the country needs to continue on the path it's on or radically change direction.

As you say, it's a huge moment for Mexico, but also one with big stakes. So can you just lay out the stakes for me a bit? What does this election mean? Inside out and outside Mexico?

Inside there's a lot at stake. In 2018, Mexicans voted for something new for Morena, a party that had never held power before. They were fed up with politics. And the change that Lopez Obrador promised, if you're a supporter, came to pass. The fourth transformation, as he grandiosely calls it. And if you're a detractor, it didn't. It's a mess. Everything is worse now. And at stake is pretty much everything. I mean, starting with Mexico's democracy. Lo Posobador has not much time for checks and imbalances. He's weakened various institutions, including the electoral body. Lots of things are worse. Security situation is worse, education is worse, healthcare is worse. But then there are also big issues that Mexico is at the center of. I mean, drug trafficking to the US migration, also trade. In 2026, Mexico is going to look at with Canada and the United States at whether to extend the free trade agreement. The three countries have past 2036. And Mexico is also at the center of U.S. efforts to diversify from China. So really this election comes at a big moment, both for the country and for its role beyond the country.

Important and polarizing election inside and out. What have you been seeing as you've been crisscrossing Mexico City?

Me and a colleague, Kinley Salman, we went to different areas of the city. To start with, I went to an area where lots of supporters for Moreno, the ruling party and Claudia Scheinbaum were. So I went to Ista Palapo, which is a working class area of 1.8 million people. It's the most populous borough in the city. And there was a mood of positivity. People were jubilant, they were very happy with what Lopez Obrador has done. And they were voting for Claudia because they wanted continuity. The specific policy that kept coming up over and over again were the cash transfers. Lopez ob Zobrado has upped them and expanded who they're given to. And people mention that they're getting scholarships for their children or pensions. And they know and they trust Schoenbaum to continue them. I spoke to also one couple, Lisabet and her husband Emilio, who said that all three of their children have scholarships and her parents get a pension. And she was very positive about this. And then Kelly and I joined together and we went to Tlalpan, which is the borough in Mexico City where Shane Baum is from, where she started her career. And people there were extremely enthusiastic about her. You know, they are longtime supporters, they've seen, seen her from the start of her career. One I talked to Maricela, spoken to her lots of times back when she was running the borough and this morning she saw her, was in the street waiting to see her go and vote. People acting like one of their own had arrived to the presidency. And a lot of people talked about their pride at that moment. I mean, you can hear it's festive, there are fireworks going off, lots of dogs barking as well, but lots of sort of celebratory atmosphere. Even before the polls closed.

Obviously not everyone's been letting off fireworks. You've mentioned this is a very polarizing election. Where are the Mexicans who are less keen on Amlo and Scheinbaum?

So my colleague Kinley Salman went to a posha neighborhood called Benito Juarez. That neighborhood is ruled by the opposition. And he found still an upbeat mood. People had turned out they were hoping that the opposition may win. Many voters were not voting for the opposition, but really against Morena and Scheinbaum. Healthcare is in a terrible state. And really a lot of people talked about security, that the gangs have spread and the country is less safe. He spoke with one woman who was 80 years old, who almost was in tears about the idea that this country for young people would not be the country she'd enjoyed growing up. And for many, the most concerning thing, and partly why the stakes of this election were so high, is the anti democratic streak that Lo Poso Obrador and Morena have.

So explain this anti democratic streak. And you mentioned it's particularly important that Shane Baum might actually have a bigger majority than the polls said.

Mexico is a young democracy. It was only in 2000 that presidential power changed hands for the first time. It had been ruled by the PRI for seven decades before that. And Mexican presidents only serve one six year term. So Lo Posobrador couldn't run again and he didn't try to. That's the democratic norm he's upheld. But during his period, he really vociferously attacked independent institutions who checked his power, such as the Supreme Court or the transparency body. And he tried to trim the agency that runs elections. He's also handed an awful lot of jobs and money to the military, things that used to be under civilian control. Now, these institutions that Mexico had built up were not perfect by any means. They had many, many problems, but he's not tried to improve them. He's really just sort of fought against them. There's real concern here about the future of elections. This one has been very marred by violence, especially local elections and lots of candidates killed and others intimidated out of running.

But AMLO is handing over power right he's chosen a successor. So what do we know about what Shane Ban might do in office?

So Shanebaum is very different from Lopez Obrador. She, like him, is a former mayor of Mexico City and she has very similar ideology on some things. But she's also a climate scientist who is much more technical or was much more technical when she ruled Mexico City. So she has a plan for security or at least ideas on how to tackle security that are modelled in some of the successful things she did as mayor. But it's very hard to tell what she's going to do because much of the campaign she's emphasized how close she is to Lopez Obrador and how she continue his project. The big area where people think she might differ is climate. So energy, clean energy, and more policies in favour of a better environment more generally, including water, which is a huge theme in Mexico at the moment too. But we don't have a clear idea of how she's going to rule because she's been very careful on the campaign to stick closely to Lopez Obrador's line.

So how easy do you think it will be for her to rule independently as her own person?

I mean, there are two questions on that. One is how much she decides to distance herself from Lob Obzobrador or how much he still has control over Morena. I mean, one thing is that Morena's coalition appears to have won a two thirds majority in the lower house and possibly even the upper house. And if they have a two thirds majority rather than a simple majority, which is what the poles were predicting, then that allows them to change the Constitution. And that paves the way for all sorts of things that Lopez Obrador wanted to do but wasn't able to. And that includes electing Supreme Court judges. So if they do have a two thirds majority, and that's unclear, that really changes the outlook for Mexico significantly.

Fascinating stuff. Thank you so much, Sarah. Please go home to bed.

Thank you, Rosie. I will do. It's that time of year. Thank you for being here.

As a Floridian born and bred, it's a reminder that I hardly need to hear. Everyone on America's Atlantic and Gulf coasts knows with a certain amount of dread that the start of June is also the start of a dangerous time.

This year. The Atlantic Current cane season is expected to be an extremely active one.

And as Daniela Levine Cava, the mayor of Florida's Miami Dade county, laid out in late May, the danger is particularly acute this year. On the same day, the national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or noaa, put some numbers to that grave message.

NOAA is predicting an above average 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. Specifically, there's an 85% chance of an above normal season.

2024 is presenting, if you'll pardon the phrase, a perfect storm of hurricane conditions.

America's climate forecaster is anticipating a record number of storms for this hurricane season. Other leading forecasters have come to similar conclusions.

Erin Braun writes about the American west.

For the Economist and weather and emergency management officials have repeated one phrase like a mantra while they're explaining these forecasts, and that is to be prepared.

So when you say record number of storms, let's put some numbers to it. How many are we talking about?

Noaa, which is the national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is anticipating between 17 and 25 named storms. And when a storm is powerful enough to get a name, that means that officials really want to be able to communicate the dangers of that to the public. Four to seven of those are expected to become major hurricanes. And a major hurricane means that they have wind speeds of about 111 miles per hour or higher, and that's about 180 kilometers per hour. And the average between 1991 and 2020 was much lower. So between those years, There was about 14 named storms, as opposed to between 17 and 25 that we're thinking might happen this year. And just three major hurricanes compared to between four or seven for this year.

And so why is that? Why are we expecting so many?

There are two main reasons for this year's really aggressive forecast. And the first is that sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic are really hot. Most hurricanes originate in a stretch of ocean between the Caribbean Sea and West Africa that we call the main development region. And in May, temperatures there reached what is normal for August. And this is mainly due to climate change. The ocean absorbs the vast majority of warming that the planet has seen. And the administrator for NOAA, Dr. Rick Spinrad, spoke a little bit about the reasons for this last month when the forecast came out.

Forecast modeling indicates that above average sea surface temperatures are predicted during the peak months of the Atlantic hurricane season from August to October. We know warm sea surface temperature is an important factor in rapid intensification of tropical cyclones to major hurricane status, and.

That the waters this year, they're way warmer than they were back in 2005. And that was a record year. Fifteen hurricanes formed, including Katrina, and that really devastated New Orleans.

Okay, so quite simply, one of the reasons here is that the water is really warm. What's the other?

The other One has to do with the El Nino Southern Oscillation. And this is winds and currents in the Pacific Ocean that influence weather around the world. It's a natural phenomenon. But this year we're expected to see a transition from an El Nino phase to a La Nina phase right during the peak of hurricane season. And Dr. Spinrad spoke a bit about this as well.

This month indicates a 77% chance of LA Nina forming during the August October timeframe.

The transition to La Nina is really important because it tends to decrease wind shear in the tropical Atlantic. If wind shear is low, storms can develop without basically being pulled apart by the wind. So cyclones have more time to gather strength before they hit land. And that's kind of a recipe for more and stronger hurricanes.

And do we have anything of a sense where this larger number of storms is more or less likely to hit?

It's really hard to tell before a storm starts to form what areas are at risk. But researchers at Colorado State University, which is a leader in hurricane forecasting, looked at historical data to try to calculate the probability of where a storm might make landfall this year. And they did this by looking at decades of data about where storms actually hit and then adjusting that risk based on the severity of this coming season. And what they found is that the most at risk area is the Florida Everglades, and that's a really sparsely populated wetland. But there's also a 23% chance that a major hurricane strikes within 50 miles of Miami Dade county, and that's where 2.7 million people live. It includes the city of Miami. So that's really worrisome. Beyond the number of storms, there's a lot more to worry about this season.

As well as if that wasn't enough to worry about, what else is there?

Speed, for one thing. Storms this century have been intensifying faster, and that seems likely to continue as the climate keeps warming. The quicker a storm strengthens, the less time that emergency managers have to warn people, the less time they have to evacuate as well. People are really worried about the confluence of extreme weather events. So if you consider what would happen if a hurricane strikes and knocks out power for hundreds of thousands of people and then extreme heat settles over Florida, and that's not a far fetched scenario. We have seen Florida already be very hot this year. Then what happens to the many, many elderly folks in Florida when they don't have air conditioning? And then the other weird thing about this year is that we've got all these elections in November, right? And hurricane season runs through November 30th. So lots of places on the Atlantic and the Gulf coast, they're trying to prepare for what it would look like if a hurricane hit in the weeks leading up to Election Day, how that might impact voting locations and ballot processing and things like that. And so election officials really have one message. They're saying, get a postal ballot and be prepared.

Erin, thanks very much for your time.

Thank you, Jason.

Rosie, here we are. Welcome.

Thank you so much.

We've been signposting this a bit, we've been telegraphing this a bit. It's finally here. You're on the show. How you feeling about it?

Scared, excited, relieved to have started.

What are you scared of?

Well, I think it's a huge privilege to be able to ask questions for a living, to be nosy for a living. But I don't normally do it on air, so this is a new medium for me.

Now, plenty of people will have heard you on the show before on the so called other side of the mic. What did you do before this? Tell us about yourself.

I joined the economist in 2011 and I worked on the Britain desk. It's the only time, despite being mostly located in Britain, that I've ever actually written about it. I covered everything from Scottish independence to Port a Loos and the light Piccadilly Circus. Not in one piece, I should say. I moved to China as China correspondent in Beijing in 2014, which was just a totally brilliant job from start to finish. Completely fascinating, always exciting, even when you weren't in the mood for it. China just comes along and hits you with incredible things to see, to write about. Stories fall out of the trees. Absolutely brilliant. And then I moved back to London in 2017 and I edited 1843, which I'm sure listeners know is part of the Economist that devoted to narrative storytelling. And at the time we were a print magazine and then during the pandemic went online only. And that was an amazing, also terrifying job, actually, where I had a fantastic team helping me along and we really did some of the journalism that I'm most proud that the Economist has published. It's a very exciting medium to be telling stories that are based around human beings, but really trying to sort of illuminate the bigger picture. Such as one of my favorite pieces was by Nick Pelham on Asma Assad, the wife of Bashar Assad, the dictator in Syria. And it was just a story that had such fantastic tiny details about the heels she wore and the clothes that she bought. And it also was telling us the story of kind of 10 years of the Arab Spring, what had happened in the past decade. And for me, stories like that are an incredible way to draw the reader in to what's happened while also making you feel like you've kind of been let in on a secret on some of the kind of tiny details and texture of life. But we had other brilliant stories, too. There was one about the people who make videos for social media. Making industrial quantities of video for social media, like the slurping milkshakes out of toilets or eating spaghetti off work surfaces, that kind of thing was just hilarious, brilliant, beautiful, and actually a fascinating business story.

And so now that you've changed roles, you're here in the studio, what kinds of stories do you want to do? What kinds of conversations would you like to have? What are you really looking forward to here?

Well, I'm still excited about having the humans in the stories. I think we are in the business of entertainment as well as information, and I think that it brings a really important aspect to any story to have the human beings at the nub end of the news that we know that we want to discuss and that we need to discuss. And I'm keen to have more of that, actually, to have more of the kind of stories and hopefully things that we can come back to, people we can come back to. And I'm keen as well that I get to keep going out and being nosy and getting to do some reporting myself. So I'm excited about all of that.

Well, excited to have you. Now, first direction, if I can give you. You're gonna lead us out of the show. You've probably heard this a bunch of times. Now you get to do it. So do the thing.

Whoa. This is a big responsibility. Do you really want me to do the thing?

Hell, yeah.

Okay, That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. Let us know what you think of the show. You can get in touch@podcastseconomist.com and you can subscribe to the economist@economist.com intelligenceoffer. The link is in the show notes. We'll see you back here tomorrow.