08:24 AM
Mexico officially opened election day and its inhabitants go to the polls this Sunday, June 2, in the midst of a serious situation due to the murder of at least 25 candidates from different municipalities in the country, among which is the last known case the one of Jorge Huerta Cabrera, murdered just 48 before the votes this Sunday.
Even, according to the NGO Data Cívica, there would actually be around thirty candidates for local office who have been murdered since last September in the framework of these elections. Violent acts forced the suspension of elections in two municipalities in Chiapas (south) on Saturday.
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The ballot boxes, to which Some 100 million voters in this country are summoned With three time zones, they opened at 8:00 a.m. (1:00 p.m. GMT) in Quintana Roo (southeast) and part of the border with the United States, and then in other states.
Meanwhile, this Sunday’s day has two women as clear favorites to take over the presidency of a country in which an average of around 10 femicides are recorded a day and devastated by the violence of drug trafficking gangs.
Claudia Sheinbaum, physicist and candidate of the left-wing ruling party, and Xóchitl Gálvez, a center-right senator with indigenous roots, They are the favorites to govern the world’s twelfth economy, with 129 million inhabitants, until 2030.
According to an average of surveys by the Oraculus firm, Sheinbaum, 61 years old and of Jewish origin, leads Gálvez by 17 percentage points, boosted by the popularity of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, his political godfather. In a distant third place is the centrist Jorge Álvarez Máynez, a 38-year-old former deputy.
Confident in the “hidden vote,” Gálvez, 61, assures that the die is not yet cast and that this Sunday “a false idol with feet of clay is going to fall,” in reference to the popular López Obrador. Gálvez, a successful businesswoman in the technology sector who focused her campaign on denouncing the president’s “failed” security policy, baptized “Hugs, not bullets” because it seeks to attack the causes of violence, believes that part of the hidden vote will come from areas hit by the powerful cartels.
Some 450,000 people have been murdered in Mexico and tens of thousands have been missing since 2006, when the government sent the army to combat criminal groups.
Contrasting visions
Sheinbaum’s followers consider that she guarantees the legacy of AMLO, who was efficient in her management as mayor of Mexico City (2018-2023) and that she is an “inspiration” for women in this country with high rates of gender violence. where about 10 women are murdered daily, according to the UN.
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“Having a female president motivates you, like you can,” says Blanca Sosa, 31, a salesperson at a store in the capital’s Zócalo. Sosa believes that Sheinbaum will maintain AMLO’s social policies, which “has done good things such as increasing the minimum wage or helping (pensions) for the elderly.” During her government, 8.9 million people were lifted out of poverty, a situation in which a third of the population still lives.
On the contrary, Ricardo Sánchez, a 55-year-old businessman from the industrial city of Monterrey (north), will vote for Gálvez because of his “business vision” and because “he is not a conventional politician.”
He criticizes López Obrador and assures that his “poor first policy is to ruin us all so that we are poor and then give us (…), so that you can say that he helps you.”
Both candidates committed to maintaining the social aid of the current government. “I’m not here alone, we’re all here!” expressed Sheinbaum when closing her campaign. “It is time for women and transformation (…) That means living without fear, free of violence.”
For his part, Gálvez reiterated that he will seek to regain control of territories controlled by crime and bring “freedom where today an authoritarian government wants to impose its decisions.”
The opposition is supported by a coalition of the traditional parties PAN, PRD and PRI, which governed for seven decades until 2000.
Challenges
The expansion of organized crime, which feeds on other crimes such as extortion, “is the most intimidating problem” that whoever becomes president will have to face, says Michael Shifter, a researcher at the Inter-American Dialogue analysis center, based in Washington.
It will also have the challenge of maintaining social programs when the fiscal deficit has risen to 5.9% and the average growth in the last six years was barely 0.8%.
Another challenge will be the complex relationship with the United States, the destination of 80% of Mexican exports, especially if Donald Trump returns to power, warns Shifter.
Trump has threatened mass deportations of migrants who cross the almost 3,200 km binational border, and in 2026 the two countries and Canada must renegotiate their T-MEC trade agreement.
In these elections, the left also seeks to expand the simple majority it has in Congress to approve controversial reforms, including a judicial one, as well as retain the mayor’s office of Mexico City, its stronghold.
