With the recent confirmation of Claudia Sheinbaum’s candidacy for the ruling party and the ratification of Xóchitl Gálvez as elected to the Broad Front for Mexico, a tripartite opposition alliance, everything seems that the presidential chair may be occupied by a woman for the first time in the history of Mexico. Parallel to the announcements of the candidacies, former Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, who came second in the ruling party poll, assured that he will be in the electoral contest, shocking the country’s political scene.
The electoral appointment that will take place on June 2, 2024 already has its protagonists on both fronts. Mexico City was the scene of the announcement of Claudia Sheinbaum as a candidate for the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), a left-wing party to which the current Mexican head of state, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, belongs. The former mayor of the capital is officially chosen to seek continuity in power.
Sheinbaum took first place in the national survey organized by Morena, where around 39% of the 12,500 citizens surveyed preferred to see Sheinbaum in the electoral contest, in a process that the now ruling party candidate described as “good”.
For his part, López Obrador congratulated the election of the former mayor, stating that he will cease to be the leader of the “transformation movement in Mexico” to hand over the baton to Sheinbaum.
“I support Claudia Sheinbaum. Today I am no longer the leader of the transformation movement in Mexico. I am going to deliver the cane in the evening,” said the president in his daily conference from Mexico City.
Claudia Sheinbaum: scientist, politician and commitment of the ruling party for continuity
Born in the Mexican capital on June 24, 1962 and a doctor in Energy Engineering, Claudia Sheinbaum began her political career within student groups at the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She is the first step from where she made the full leap into public life at the hands of López Obrador, with whom she has lived closely since he joined the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in 1989.
Sheinbaum belonged to the cabinet of López Obrador during his period as regent of Mexico City (2000-2005), where he served as Secretary of the Environment, and also participated as a spokesperson for his first presidential campaign in 2006, where the current president fell defeated against the rightist Felipe Calderón. An election in which the Morena candidate echoed the allegations of electoral fraud made by López Obrador.
More recently, Claudia Sheinbaum joined the electoral race for the leadership of the Mexican capital in 2018. A decision that, according to the words of the leftist, was at the request of AMLO himself, as his followers call him.
“I did not want to be a candidate for head of government, I do it because Andrés Manuel asked me to,” Sheinbaum said in a conversation with Mexican filmmakers in 2018, on the eve of the beginning of the electoral campaign for Mexico City.
His mandate in the capital was full of chiaroscuro: a handling of the pandemic that sometimes annoyed the federal government, but which had satisfactory results; the constant confrontation with feminist groups; criticism of the housing situation in the city and the disastrous collapse of line 12 of the capital’s metro, which resulted in 27 deaths and dozens of injuries.
This fact became one of the critical focuses of the opposition, commanded by the right, which intends to prevent the arrival of Sheinbaum to power and hinder the continuity of Morena in the National Palace with a name: Xóchitl Gálvez.
Xóchitl Gálvez: The ‘irreverent’ hope of the opposition
Gálvez was chosen from the opposition alliance made up of the National Action Party (PAN), traditionally conservative and right-wing; the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), AMLO’s former political association, and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled the country for more than 70 years.
An unconventional ideological and political mix is the formula for which many admire ‘Xó’, as some of his supporters call him.
At the age of 66, Xóchitl Gálvez was born in Tepatepec, Hidalgo, in the cradle of an indigenous family with limited economic resources. In fact, its origin is one of the flags raised by the now opposition candidate.
Always referring to meritocracy and using her story as an example of improvement, Gálvez boasts of having escaped poverty through the “sale of jellies”, which was enough to pay for her university education and become the owner of various companies.
Already as a politician, in 2015 she held the leadership of the Miguel Hidalgo delegation, within Mexico City, and in 2018 she entered the Mexican chamber with the blue and white flag of the PAN, although she has always expressed that she considers herself an “independent” politician “.
When Sheinbaum was named as the official candidate, Gálvez was “happy” because Mexico would possibly have its first female president in 2024. However, he also criticized the transparency in the candidate election process in Morena, indirectly inviting former Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, owner from second place in the pro-government poll and denouncer of “irregularities in the process”, to join his front.
Did AMLO not comply with you either?
Join the millions of disappointed.
In this Broad Front we receive you with our hearts, not with the public force.
— Xóchitl Gálvez Ruiz (@XochitlGalvez) September 6, 2023
“Did AMLO not comply with you either? Join the millions of disappointed. In this Broad Front we receive you with our hearts, not with the public force,” the opposition candidate wrote on her X account.
Marcelo Ebrard: the third in contention?
Of all the candidates for the official candidacy, the former foreign minister was the only one who was dissatisfied with the results of the survey, since Ebrard had denounced mishandling of the ballots and ballot boxes at different voting points as a situation that would have diminished his possibility. of being the presidential candidate of Morena.
Hours before the revelation of the final candidate of the Mexican left, Ebrard affirmed that he was “out of the process.” But what surprised the public the most was a statement that could break with the unity of the progressive front in Mexico: “I will be on the ballot in 2024.”
Ebrard’s statement shocked the Mexican political scene, since some voices within the country presume that the former foreign minister could join the Movimiento Ciudadano party and be an unexpected candidate who could break into the electoral contest, since he has a respectable political force. Ebrard came in second in the Morena poll with just over 25% approval.
Both Sheinbaum and Andrés Manuel López Obrador himself have opened the doors to dialogue with the former foreign minister. In fact, the former mayor even offered her a seat in his presidential cabinet if he manages to come to power next year.
At the moment, there are two women who are running for the Presidency of a country that is experiencing a serious and painful situation of femicides, with an average of 10 women murdered per day.
In an unprecedented situation and within a country with spheres of power held by men, the historic contest between Sheinbaum and Gálvez raises a question: Is Mexico ready for a female president?
With EFE and local media
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