MEXICO CITY — Claudia Sheinbaum was sworn in Tuesday as Mexico’s first female president, riding the enthusiasm over her predecessor’s social programs but also facing challenges that include stubbornly high levels of violence.

After a smiling Sheinbaum took the oath of office on the floor of Congress, legislators shouted the feminine form of the word president in Spanish — “Presidenta! Presidenta!” — for the first time in over 200 years of Mexico’s history as an independent country.

The 62-year-old scientist-turned-politician receives a country with a number of immediate problems, including a sluggish economy, unfinished building programs, rising debt and the hurricane-battered resort city of Acapulco.

She made a long list of promises to limit prices for gasoline and food, expand cash handout programs for women and children, support business investment, housing and passenger rail construction. But mentions of the drug cartels that control much of the country was brief and near the end of the list.

Sheinbaum offered little change from outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s “Hugs Not Bullets” strategy of not confronting the cartels, apart from pledging more intelligence work and investigation. “There will be no return to the irresponsible drug war,” she said.

Sheinbaum, an ideological university leftist, romped to victory in June with nearly 60% of the vote, propelled largely by the sustained popularity of her political mentor, the charismatic López Obrador, who took office six years ago.

She has pledged to continue all his policies, even those that strengthened the power of the military and weakened the country’s checks and balances.