Mexico bid farewell Monday to Ifigenia Martínez, a feminist icon of the country’s political left, who died at age 99 on Saturday — just four days after presiding over the hand-over of power to Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first woman president.
Martínez’s coffin, draped with the Mexican flag, was wheeled into the Legislative Palace of San Lázaro, the seat of Congress, where lawmakers paid homage to a pioneer who had served as an ambassador, senator, and, at the time of her death, was president of the Chamber of Deputies.
Sheinbaum earlier attended a memorial for Martínez, whom she lauded as an inspiration for generations of Mexican women and leftists.
Sheinbaum’s ascension to the presidency culminated decades of battle for equal rights in a nation with a long legacy of machismo — and where women didn’t win the right to vote until 1953.
Upon Martínez’s passing, Sheinbaum praised her idol on social media.
“On June 2, I voted for Ifigenia Martínez, a principled woman of convictions. On Oct. 1, I received the presidential sash from her hands. Today she left us,” Sheinbaum wrote. “I send all my affection and solidarity to her family, companions and friends. Hasta siempre [Forever onward] dear teacher Ifigenia.”
After casting her ballot in national elections on June 2, Sheinbaum, a long-time leftist activist, was asked which presidential candidate had received her vote.
“Ifigenia Martínez,” Sheinbaum replied without hesitation.
It was a write-in, as Martínez’s name was not on the ballot. But Sheinbaum had sought to pay symbolic homage to the trail-blazer.
After her election, Sheinbaum extolled Martínez as “one of the women who has opened the path for many women in Mexico.”
On Oct. 1, an ailing Martínez presided over Sheinbaum’s inauguration as hundreds of lawmakers and visiting heads of state looked on.
Martínez, her breathing labored, received the presidential sash — featuring the colors of the Mexican flag and embossed with a gold-threaded national coat of arms— from the outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and presented it to Sheinbaum, symbolically finalizing the transfer of power.
A day before her death, Martínez posted on social media: “The arrival of Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum to the presidency is the culmination of a struggle that has lasted through entire generations of women. Women who, with courage, have challenged the limits of our times.”
Taking part in the historic transition she wrote, was “one of the greatest honors” of her life. “All my love, dear president.”
It was the finale of decades of political activism for Martínez.
She was first elected in 1976 to the the Chamber of Deputies. In the 1980s, Martínez was was among the leftist political leaders behind a reformist bloc that eventually formed a base for the the National Regeneration Movement, or Morena — formally registered as a political party a decade ago by López Obrador. Sheinbaum ran for president under the banner of Morena, winning a landslide victory against a center-right opposition coalition.
Morena, with Sheinbaum as its standard-bearer, now dominates Mexican politics.
Apart from her storied political career, Martínez served as Mexico’s ambassador to the United Nations and as head of the economics department at the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) — also the alma mater of Sheinbaum, who holds a PhD in climate science.
According to UNAM, Martínez was the first Mexican woman to receive a masters in economics from Harvard University, where she also studied for her doctorate.
As an UNAM faculty member in 1968, Martínez expressed vocal opposition to the the military occupation of parts of the campus during 1968 pro-democracy demonstrations.
In one of her first public pronouncements as president, Sheinbaum, 62, called herself a “child of 1968,” and delivered a formal state apology for the massacre of students and other protesters by Mexican security forces during 1968 demonstrations in Mexico City.