The Mexican capital, with its 16 mayoralties, is one of the crucial places in this campaign, not only because of the millions of votes it represents for any presidential candidate but also because of its own government, which has been in the hands of left-wing parties for decades and is a catapult of those who aspire to be leaders of the Republic. In an election that many consider predictable in favor of Claudia Sheinbaum to occupy the presidency, Mexico City is now in everyone’s sights, with the June 2 elections just around the corner. For the Morenistas, winning the presidency and losing Mexico City would mean a bitter victory. They trust Sheinbaum to attract votes in favor of Clara Brugada. For the opposition, losing the presidency, but winning the capital, would be a happy defeat. They trust Santiago Taboada to add votes in favor of Xóchitl Gálvez. The capital has become the symbol of victory.
The Morenistas trust in the influence of whoever was their head of the capital’s government until a few months ago to preserve the city, despite the upset suffered in the 2021 midterm elections, when the cherry party lost four of the nine mayoralties it ran. The PAN members hope to advance on that result and serve as a granary for Gálvez’s expectations. The concentration of the opposition in the Zócalo last Sunday was a kind of general rehearsal to close the campaign, but it will not be the last in which they ask citizens to make an effort to conquer the jewel of the Republic. While Shienbaum closes his race at the polls on Wednesday the 29th in the Zócalo, Gálvez will do the same in Iztalapalapa, Claudia Brugada’s mayor’s office, and before that he will tour another neighborhood of the capital, Tepito. He will then exhaust his capital trips visiting Gustavo A. Madero.
The polls lean in favor of Clara Brugada for the capital leadership, but unrest reigns in all the campaign headquarters. The PAN member Santiago Taboada, who started with the burden of the real estate scandal in the mayor’s office that he has run and despite some setbacks, has weathered the storm to become a dangerous contender for the left. No party or its followers consider themselves losers, but in this local contest, those who interpret the signs of the campaign as one looks for designs in night dreams, have not wanted to risk an irrefutable victory for anyone. The teams in contention will redouble their efforts in the remaining days of rallies. The capital is the last stop of the campaign, the last battle, perhaps, and the most pressing. Not everything is said in these elections.
Faced with the pink tide that greeted the candidates of the opposition coalition in the Zócalo on Sunday, Taboada promised “to do everything, to fight so that on June 2 [la Ciudad de México] be the place that gives the most votes” to Gálvez to become, she said, president. On the other hand, the Morenistas hope that it will be their presidential candidate, Sheinbaum, who will attract votes for Clara Brugada. Although Sheinbaum continues to reinforce the northern states with his presence, this Monday he stopped his caravan east of the capital, in the Magdalena Contreras mayor’s office, now in the hands of the PRI, and there he repeated to his followers the need for the vote to be of the same color. , all for Morena. She warned of the crossed vote that, according to her, “is promoting the opposition.” It means that voters are urged to opt for the candidate of one party for the presidency or for the capital leadership and for a different party for the mayor, a danger that Morena has been trying to avert for some time.
Gálvez has also chosen the city this Tuesday, with a rally at the Álvaro Obregón mayor’s office, which combines wealthy areas with some of the poorest in the city, such as Las Golondrinas, where caciquil ways reduce the freedom to vote depending on who owns the each neighborhood. Like her opponents, the candidate, wearing a cap, held a rally with Taboada and Lía Limón. “We are going to win to help those who have less,” she told them. “Vote PAN, vote PRI, vote PRD.” A color for the taste of each neighborhood.
With some notable defections, the third party focuses its efforts in the capital under the guidance of Salomón Chertorivski. The Citizen Movement was urged last week to decline its forces in favor of the opposition coalition, but they received a resounding refusal from Jorge Álvarez Máynez, who appeared in the last presidential debate and addressed it with solvency. However, Esther Mejía Bolaños, orange candidate for mayor Álvaro Obregón, the same one that Gálvez has visited and which has around 760,000 inhabitants, decided to take that step and decline, but she did so in favor of Morena. And live, during the broadcast of her mayoral election debate. Citizen Movement trusts that its meager expectations in the capital will experience a rise with the hidden vote. But just like the surprise that Mejía Bolaños gave, it is possible that the hidden vote will go somewhere else.
With a heat wave to which the capital’s residents are not accustomed, candidates at all levels are saying goodbye to the campaign in Mexico City, an uncertain territory that prompts them to throw their all into the bargain. In the capital, simple slogans do not work, since extreme poverty coexists with a large middle class and the message must be refined to convince everyone. Not everything is said in the heart of Mexico and the result on June 2 will be one of the most interesting in the entire Republic.
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