Mexico goes to vote, 99 million at the polls to elect the first ‘president’

Today Mexico goes to vote in historic elections that will lead to the election of the country’s first female president. In the field against the super favorite Claudia Sheinbaum, the former mayor of Mexico City and candidate of the left-wing coalition led by the Morena party of outgoing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, there is in fact the former senator three right-wing opposition parties, including the PRI which governed Mexico for 71 years.

So whatever the result that will come out of the polls today – with 99 million Mexican voters called to participate in the largest elections in the country’s historywith 20,000 federal and local positions up for grabs, including 128 seats in the Senate and 500 in the House – it will be a “president” who takes charge of Latin America’s second-largest economy, which has to deal with growing violence from criminal cartels , slow economic growth, rampant corruption and an ongoing migration crisis.

Sheinbaum presents himself in continuity with the 6 years of Amlo, as the outgoing president who is barred by the Constitution from running again is called. “The foundations have been laid,” the 61-year-old, with a degree in physics and engineering, said as she closed the campaign last Wednesday in the Zocalo square in the capital, praising the efforts made by Lopez Obrador to reduce poverty and violence.

During the electoral campaign, Sheinbaum, who polls give an advantage of up to 20%, underlined the need to strengthen some policies in the fields of energy, security and the fight against corruption, without ever criticizing Amlo, who she considered her mentor politic. And that may be her Achilles’ heel, since some say the much more charismatic, and popular despite a polarizing profile, outgoing president could remain a looming presence.

Obviously Galvez’s message is completely oppositewho chose to close the campaign in Monterrey, the northern city in the industrial heart of the country: “Enough with the lies! They say that Mexico is better than ever and it’s not true, Mexico wants peace and tranquility”, said the former senator, also 61 years old, who promises better social programs, fight against corruption and above all crime, with the number of murders reaching a record of 185 thousand during the presidency of Lopez Obrador.

Violence has profoundly marked these electionseven in its closing stages, with the mayoral candidate of Galvez’s coalition in a city in the state of Guerrero being killed, becoming the 36th candidate assassinated since the start of the election campaign, despite being one of the 560 candidates and electoral officials to whom the escort had been given following threats.

According to López Obrador’s critics, what fueled the excessive violence was the policy adopted by the left-wing populist president of “Abrazos, no balazos”, that is, hugs and not bullets, in tackling the violence of the cartels not with violence, but by going At the root of the problem, consider poverty and lack of opportunity. A policy that Amlo has also peppered with messages against the USA, and the policy of international fight against drug cartels, claiming that he does not want to be “a policeman for any foreign government, Mexico comes first”.

This policy, however, would have given greater strength to the cartels and criminal groups, thus causing the number of murders to skyrocket and political violence to increase, especially in territories that were the scene of clashes between rival cartels, on the occasion of the elections which at a local level are seen as a opportunity to gain power. According to the human rights organization Data Civica, at least 145 people linked to politics have been killed this year.

A third candidate, Jorge Alvarez Maynez, has entered the battle between the two main candidates, a little-known 38-year-old deputy who last January was nominated for president by the Movimiento Ciudadano. At a clear distance from Galvez, Maynez has resisted in recent weeks the appeals that have come to him from various quarters from the opposition front urging him to withdraw so as not to disperse the votes against the Morena government coalition.