Mexicans will likely choose the first female president in the country’s history on Sunday, between a former academic who promises to promote the current leader’s populist policies and a former senator and tech entrepreneur who pledges to step up the fight against drug cartels murderers.
Nearly 100 million people are registered to vote in the race to replace outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Voters will also elect governors in nine of the nation’s 32 states and choose candidates for both houses of Congress, thousands of city halls and other local offices in the nation’s most important elections in history. violence.
The elections are widely seen as a referendum on López Obrador, a populist who has expanded social programs but largely failed to reduce cartel violence in Mexico. His Morena party currently holds 23 of 32 governorships and a simple majority of seats in both houses of Congress. The Mexican constitution prohibits the re-election of the president.
Turnout appeared high in the capital, with long lines of voters under clear skies.
Morena hopes to secure the two-thirds majority in Congress required to amend the constitution to eliminate oversight agencies she considers cumbersome and unnecessary. The opposition, formed in a loose coalition, believes this would endanger Mexico’s democratic institutions.
Both leading presidential candidates are women and either would be Mexico’s first female president. A third candidate from a smaller party, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, comes far behind.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum is running with the Morena party. Sheinbaum, leading the race, has promised to continue all of López Obrador’s policies, including a universal pension for the elderly and a program that pays young people in apprenticeships.
Opposition presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez, whose father was an indigenous Otomi, went from selling street snacks in her poor hometown to starting her own technology companies. The candidate for a coalition of major opposition parties, she left the Senate last year to focus her anger on López Obrador’s decision to avoid confronting drug cartels through his “hugs, not” policy. balls “. She pledged to pursue criminals more aggressively.
Persistent cartel violence, as well as Mexico’s poor economic performance, are voters’ top concerns.
On the outskirts of Mexico City, in the San Andres Totoltepec neighborhood, election officials encountered Stephania Navarrete, a 34-year-old housewife, who watched as dozens of cameramen and election officials gathered where front-runner Claudia Sheinbaum was to vote .
Navarrete said she planned to vote for Sheinbaum despite her own doubts about incumbent President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his party.
“Having a woman president, for me as a Mexican, will be like before when, just because you say you are a woman, you are limited to certain professions. No more.”
She said Sheinbaum’s mentor’s social programs were crucial, but that worsening cartel violence in recent years was her main concern in this election.
“It’s something they need to focus more on,” she said. “For me, safety is the biggest challenge. They said they were going to reduce the level of crime, but no, it was the opposite, they increased. Obviously, I don’t completely blame the president, but in a way it’s his responsibility.”
Julio García, a Mexico City office worker, said he was voting for the opposition in Mexico City’s central San Rafael neighborhood. “They robbed me twice at gunpoint. We need to change direction, change leadership,” said the 34-year-old. “Continuing on the same path will take us directly to Venezuela. »
Turnout showed up early in his neighborhood, with people lining up around the block to vote.
In Iztapalapa, Mexico City’s largest district, Angelina Jiménez, a 76-year-old housewife, said she came to vote “to end this incompetent government that says we are fine and there is ( again) so many deaths”.
She said the violence in Mexico really worries her, so she plans to vote for opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez, who has promised to take on the cartels. “(López Obrador) says it was better and that’s not true. We are worse.
López Obrador claims to have reduced historically high homicide levels by 20% since he took office in December 2018. But that is largely a claim based on a questionable reading of the statistics; the actual homicide rate appears to have declined by only about 4 percent in six years.
About 675,000 Mexicans living abroad are registered to vote, but only a small percentage have done so in the past. Voting is not compulsory in Mexico and overall turnout hovered around 60% in recent elections. This compares to turnout in recent US presidential elections. An exception occurred in 2020, when the clash between then-President Donald Trump and future President Joe Biden pushed U.S. voter turnout to 67%, its highest level since decades.
Just as the upcoming rematch between Biden and Trump in November underscored deep divisions in the United States, Sunday’s election revealed how Mexican public opinion is severely polarized over the country’s direction, including its strategy security and how to develop the economy.
Beyond the fight for control of Congress, the race in Mexico City – whose top job is now considered equivalent to a governorship – is also important. Sheinbaum is just the latest of a slew of Mexico City mayors, including López Obrador, who have run for president. There is also interest in gubernatorial positions in large, highly populated states like Veracruz and Jalisco.
Polling stations opened at 8:00 a.m. and closed at 6:00 p.m. (00:00 GMT Monday) in most of the country. The first preliminary and partial results are expected around 9:00 p.m. (03:00 GMT Monday) after the closing of the last polls in different time zones.
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Associated Press writer Fabiola Sánchez contributed to this report.
NBC Chicago
