Who is Carlos Ímaz Gispert, the ex-husband of Claudia Sheinbaum, the new president of Mexico?
Newly elected Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum was married to this politician and college professor for almost 30 years. Who is Carlos Ímaz Gispert?
Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo fulfilled the predictions of all the polls and swept the presidential elections in Mexico. The politician of Jewish origin has become the first female leader of the country, where she will take the baton from Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Sheinbaum was married to Carlos Ímaz Gispert, a fellow activist, for almost three decades. They got married in 1987 and decided to go their separate ways in 2006.
Criminal charges filed against Carlos Imaz Gispert
The couple’s divorce followed a scandal involving Imaz, who was also a politician. He was elected Delegational Head in Tlalpan in 2003.
A few months after he took office, Imaz acknowledged having received large amounts of money from businessman and contractor of the Federal District government Carlos Ahumada. He claimed that Ahumada was a blackmailer who asked for government positions, a request he said he denied.
Imaz was charged and found criminally responsible for an electoral crime. A judge sentenced him to three years and six months in prison, but due to the electoral nature of the crime, the punishment was replaced by a fine and Imaz avoided going to jail.
He later appealed the sentence and was exonerated by three Federal District judges who ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prove criminal liability.
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Carlos Ímaz’s personal life and academic background
Ímaz was born in 1958 in Mexico City. He is the second child of mathematician Carlos Ímaz Jahnke and scientist Montserrat Gispert Cruells, and is the grandson of philosopher Eugenio Ímaz Echeverría.
Imaz has a son from a marriage prior to marrying Sheinbaum named Rodrigo Imaz Alarcón. He and the new president also share a daughter, who was born in 1988. Meanwhile, Sheinbaum remarried in 2023 to Jesús María Tarriba.
Imaz graduated with a degree in Sociology from the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico). He also holds a doctorate in education from Stanford University.
Imaz has been working as a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico since 1984, holding the post even as he ventured into politics.