02/06/2024 – 4:56
The country is expected to elect its first female president this Sunday. López Obrador’s legacy in social programs and growing gang violence dominated the campaign. Mexicans will go to the polls this Sunday (02/06) to choose the occupants of more than 20 thousand elected positions, including the next president – who, for the first time in Mexican history, it must be a woman.
The two main candidates for the country’s top position are Claudia Sheinbaum, supported by the current Mexican leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the opposition Bertha Xóchitl Gálvez.
The 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 128 in the Senate, the command of seven state and city governments and thousands of local legislative positions will also be up for grabs. Almost 99 million Mexicans are eligible to vote.
Attention is more focused on the choice of the new president, which will be a referendum on the performance of López Obrador, who has been at the helm of Latin America’s second largest economy since December 2018.
What was the López Obrador government like?
The president was elected on a left-wing populist platform, promising to expand social benefits and combat corruption and violence, and ends his term with high approval. In April, his government had the average support of 66% of Mexicans, according to an opinion poll aggregator from the AS/COA organization.
One of López Obrador’s strong points was the expansion of social programs, the creation of a universal pension and the increase in the minimum wage. Ignacio Ibarra, from the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, told DW that his mandate saw a reduction in poverty, an increase in average income and a reduction in the wage gap between men and women. The government’s performance in the area of social programs is considered positive by 72% of Mexicans, according to the AS/COA aggregator.
In the fight against organized crime, the scenario is the opposite. Only 23% consider that their government did a good job in the area. During the campaign, the president highlighted the 5% drop in homicides in 2023 compared to the previous year – but around 30,000 people are still murdered each year in Mexico, and more people were killed during his term than in any other country. administration in the modern history of Mexico.
The government has invested in the increasing use of the military to combat violence, but without decisive success against gangs and cartels, which exercise great power over areas of the country.
Affiliated with the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), López Obrador was not directly involved in major corruption scandals, and cultivated proximity to voters through popular language and daily press conferences. Throughout his term, he used referendums to apply controversial policies, and in 2022 he even promoted a recall to confirm whether voters would like him to remain in office.
In the economy, López Obrador delivers the government on a favorable trajectory, with GDP per capita growing, inflation falling and a positive trade balance. Mexican exports hit their all-time high in 2023, and the country has been benefiting from growing economic integration with the United States and investment from Western companies that are gradually trying to reduce their dependence on factories in China.
Víctor Gómez Ayala, director of data analysis at the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO), told DW that there was also an effort by the administration to control public spending, “in contrast to what has been seen in the cases of other populist left-wing governments in Latin America during this period”.
Violence in the campaign
The problem of public security is also reflected in the electoral campaign, which is already the most violent in Mexico’s history. From September to May, 34 candidates or pre-candidates were killed – more than the 24 candidates killed in the 2018 campaign. According to risk consultancy Integralia, there were 560 violent incidents against candidates, more than the 389 in the last campaign.
The bulk of these incidents are related to the actions of gangs seeking to control territories, influence the political dispute and eliminate opponents – which has caused several candidates to withdraw from running.
The federal government mobilized the military to guarantee the protection of 465 candidates, mobilizing 3,000 soldiers for this – a tiny portion of the total number of candidates in the dispute.
The elections will be closely monitored by international observers. The National Electoral Institute reported having accredited 1,309 external observers, the highest number since 1994, when the practice began. The Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean will send 120 observers, the Organization of American States, 100, and the United States Embassy in Mexico, 76.
The two main candidates
Government leader Sheinbaum was mayor of Mexico City before being chosen by López Obrador as the name for his succession. Granddaughter of Jewish immigrants, she completed a doctorate in engineering and worked as a researcher in the area of sustainability – which differentiates her in this regard from the current president, who has not prioritized combating climate change.
The other candidate is Xóchitl Gálvez, a businesswoman of indigenous origin who is running on the opposition front, made up of her right-wing National Action Party (PAN), the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), and the Revolutionary Party Institutional (PRI), which governed Mexico from 1929 to 2000.
She studied computer science and has a technology company. Gálvez wears indigenous clothes, travels by bicycle and is a harsh critic of the government in relation to the fight against organized crime. Today she is a senator and a member of a conservative party, but has liberal positions on abortion and marijuana.
Sheinbaum is ahead in the race with an advantage of 20 percentage points, according to an electoral survey carried out by the company Buendía & Márque and published this Tuesday by the newspaper El Universal. The survey was conducted from May 16 to 26 and interviewed 2,000 voters.
Sheinbaum has 54% of voting intentions, against 34% for Gálvez. In third place is candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez, from Movimiento Ciudadano (MC).
In addition to electing the first female president, this year’s election is the first in which there will be gender parity among candidates, due to a reform approved in 2019.
Saraí Aguilar, professor at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León and specialist in culture with a gender perspective, told DW that it will be an important milestone in “breaking the glass ceiling, reaching the maximum position of power”, but “we have to be aware that This will not necessarily advance the feminist agenda.”
Sheinbaum promised to advance a bill against vicarious violence, which particularly affects women, but, according to Aguilar, when she was mayor she repressed female protests. Gálvez has already stated that she is a defender of the right to abortion and wants to expand the economic inclusion of women and gender equality in the Judiciary, but she is a member of a conservative party that traditionally opposes the flags of the feminist movement.
On the issue of public security, Gálvez proposes reversing the militarization implemented by López Obrador, strengthening the National Civil Police and reforming the prison system, partly taken over by organized crime.
The government’s Sheinbaum proposes to further advance the militarization of the National Guard – the army enjoys high confidence among Mexicans, and they are seen as public agents less exposed to corruption due to their higher salaries, compared to those of the local police.
In addition to violence, another issue that will demand the future president’s attention is how to deal with the growing flow of immigrants arriving in Mexico with the aim of trying to enter the United States.
bl (Reuters, DW, ots)
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