President of Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies dies at 94

She was one of the first Mexican women to hold important positions in the academic and political spheres.

The president of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico, Ifigenia Martínez y Hernández, died this Saturday at the age of 94, just a few days after swearing in Claudia Sheinbaum as the country’s first female president.

Martínez was the seventh woman to receive the highest civil distinction awarded by the Senate since the establishment of this recognition in 1954.

Last August, by majority vote, Ifigenia Martínez was elected as the president of the Board of Directors for the first year of legislative exercise and for this reason she was the one who gave the presidential sash to Sheinbaum, where she was seen to be in poor health, to the point that she could not place said insignia on the president in Congress.

“On June 2, I voted for Ifigenia Martinez, a consistent woman of convictions. On October 1, I received the presidential sash from her hands. Today she left us. I send all my love and solidarity to her family, colleagues and friends. Farewell, dear teacher Ifigenia,” wrote Sheinbaum Pardo on her official account on the social network X.

Martínez has been one of the most emblematic female figures of the Mexican left. She was born on June 16, 1930 and was one of the first economists to do studies on economic and social inequality in Mexico.

She received a degree, a master’s degree and a doctorate in economics from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and was the first Mexican woman to obtain a master’s degree in economics from Harvard University, according to the Mexican newspaper ‘La Jornada’.

Written by: Oscar El Blue

President of Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies dies at 94.