MEXICO CITY (AP) — When Mexicans go to the polls on June 2, they will in an increasingly polarized country which continues to battle staggering levels of violence across vast swaths of territory.
Dozens of organized crime gangs now control cities, neighborhoods and rural hamlets. Mexico’s largest cartels have opened new fronts of violence in remote corners like the jungle stretches of the Mexico-Guatemala border. Not only do they fight among themselves, but they even extort those at the bottom of the economic ladder to fuel their illicit enterprises.
FILE – Erika Maria Cruz and her husband cry next to the body of their son, Brando Arellano Cruz, fatally shot by police after he failed to stop, in Lerdo de Tejada, Mexico, on January 19 2024. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez, File)
Even the Catholic Church has been forced to intervene in an attempt to broker peace in conflict zones, but see his own priests kidnapped and killed.
Mexico’s next president will almost certainly be a woman. The two leading candidates are women and the third, a man from a smaller party, is lagging behind. This prospect has sparked hope among some of Mexico’s most marginalized sectors, including Indigenous women and the country 2.5 million domestic workers, let their voices be heard. One of the two candidates proposes continuity. The other promises change.
FILE – Center-left ruling party presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum greets supporters during a campaign rally, flanked by mayoral candidate Clara Brugada and Morena Party President Mario Delgado in Mexico City, on May 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)
FILE – Opposition presidential candidate Xóchitl Galvez greets supporters during a campaign rally in Huixquilucan, Mexico, April 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)
Other women, mothers of In Mexico, more than 100,000 people have disappeared, have less reason to hope to see change. Outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador policy of “hugs, not bullets” The fight against drug cartels has failed to significantly reduce the number of murders. Nor did his predecessors’ strategy of pursuing drug lords in all-out war improve the situation.
Some Mexicans hope that one or other of the leading candidates can accelerate Mexico’s halting and limited moves toward clean energy. Most agree that López Obrador, a fossil fuel enthusiast who maintained an outsized presence in the election even without appearing on the ballot, represented a step backwards — he built a massive new oil refinery and disadvantage clean energy producers.
His designated successor, favorite and Claudia Sheinbaum, former mayor of Mexico City has a background in climate science. With much of the country suffering from water shortages and prolonged drought, there is a certain urgency and thirst for action.
FILE – Supporters of presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum gather in the Zocalo, facing the cathedral, for her opening campaign rally at the Zocalo in Mexico City, March 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Aurea Del Rosario, File)
Pedestrians are reflected in a shop window as they look at wedding dresses, in Mexico City, Thursday, May 30, 2024. Mexicans will vote Sunday in an election that weighs on gender, democracy and populism, as they are charting the way forward for the country on voting, in the shadow of cartel violence. With two women leading the vote, Mexico will likely elect its first female president. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
FILE – A woman holds up a sign with a message in Spanish: “I will trade my vote for my son,” referring to this year’s presidential election, during the annual National March of Mothers in Research, in Mexico City, on May 10. , 2024. Protesters say the government shows little interest in investigating the disappearances of more than 100,000 people reported missing in Mexico. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, file)
FILE- Magdalena Hernández Santiz cuts weeds using a machete as her husband, Pedro Cruz Gomez, sprays their field with herbicides before planting corn in the Tojolabal village of Plan de Ayala, Chiapas state, Mexico, May 2, 2024. Seventy years ago, Mexican women gained the right to vote and today the country is about to elect its first female president. Yet some of the indigenous women who will vote in Sunday’s national elections still have no voice in their own homes and communities. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, file)
FILE – Maria Hochihua Perez, who said her daughter Nimbe disappeared five years ago, carries a sign offering a cash reward, during the National March of Mothers in Search, in Mexico City, May 10, 2024. The march took place two days after López’s march. Obrador’s administration has accused the press and volunteer searchers who search for the bodies of missing people of “necrophilia.” (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, file)
FILE – A car covered in craft items for sale is parked on a street in Mexico City, December 4, 2023. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office in 2018 with his administration’s priorities as his motto: “For the good of all “. , first the poor. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, file)
FILE – A buyer holds a postcard of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that says in Spanish: “AMLO, the coolest president,” for sale in front of the presidential palace in Mexico City, March 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo , File )
FILE – A peace flag flies on the perimeter fence of the Saint Francis Xavier Parish Church, where two Jesuit priests were murdered in 2022 by gang leader “El Chueco”, in Cerocahui, Mexico, on May 12 2024. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)
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