The Mexican electoral campaign heads into its final stretch towards June 2 with two candidates, both 61 years old, with possibilities, but one of them, according to the polls, with a large advantage: the candidate of the party in Government, Claudia Sheinbaum, successor to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, from whom she received the command to take the reins of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena). Sheinbaum left the leadership of the capital to be the standard bearer of her party for the presidency. The latest poll published by this newspaper gives her 20 points over her opponent, Xóchitl Gálvez, the one designated by the opposition coalition that brings together the right-wing National Action Party (PAN), the surviving Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and a minority Party of the Revolution Democratic Party (PRD), a former split from the progressive-leaning PRI.
Despite the distance between the two candidates, for now there are only a couple of certainties: a woman will be elected for the first time for the presidency of Mexico in a context where violence does not let up.
The popularity of President López Obrador has remained above 60% for practically the entire six-year term, one of the world leaders with the greatest support among citizens, and the strength of the leader pushes his successor towards victory, boosted by the social aid that have been granted in this period that is coming to an end. About 70% of the population receives some financial support, whether it be study scholarships or higher pensions for retirees. The minimum wage for workers has been raised like never before, the currency maintains its strength and inflation is contained; The remittances sent by emigrants set one record after another, as does foreign investment, with 36 billion dollars in 2023.
All of this predicts a promising economic future for the country, which has surpassed China for the first time in exports to the United States, with whom the free trade agreement has been renewed. The relocation of American companies is also targeting Mexico, so there is hope for future jobs. These are jobs that about 36% of the population in poverty, or extreme poverty, would gladly receive.
A plebiscite for the six-year term of López Obrador
The opposition has spent the entire six-year term without a leader who could confront the push of the ruling party, which is why they have had to unite in a coalition that unites two historically feuding parties, the PAN and the PRI, and that many citizens do not They have just seen each other with good eyes, neither together nor apart. The first is rejected by 19% of the electorate and the second by 49%. However, there are no other options that can reflect the discontent generated in these six years, except Movimiento Ciudadano, the third party in the running. But this formation is far behind in voting intention, despite its constant growth, with a preference of 7% for Jorge Álvarez Máynez compared to 36% for Gálvez and 56% for Sheinbaum, according to surveys published by this newspaper, which They give the official candidate an 86% probability of victory. The country is very polarized between those who defend the work of the president and his party and those whose primary objective is to end all that. The elections are presented as a plebiscite for López Obrador’s six-year term.
With an almost undisputed winner for the presidency, second place turns out to be juicy for the opposition because the candidate’s votes would serve to achieve a good result in the legislative chambers, as well as in the mayor’s offices throughout the country and in the handful of State governorships that are also decided in these elections. One of them, the most relevant, is Mexico City, for decades in the hands of the left and possibly the square that has the ruling party most worried, where it already lost its hegemony in the 2021 midterm elections. The capital could remain in the hands of the right and force a difficult cohabitation with the presidency of the country. But the results in the city are still very open.
The opposition coalition does not lose hope, however, of overtaking Sheinbaum and is raising polls that place the candidates almost tied. But the continuity that the favorite candidate sells with respect to the policies developed in recent years by the president poses a difficult fight, with the aforementioned social aid as the greatest strength to keep the vote on the side of the left.
Xóchitl Gálvez, an engineer and businesswoman with an extroverted and sometimes irreverent personality, even pricked her finger at a rally to seal with blood the commitment to maintain this aid for the most needy population if she won the presidency. All in all, the campaign has been sad for her team and the first electoral debate presented a candidate without the drive that was expected of her, so she promised to change course.
Gálvez is in a difficult situation: on the one hand, he represents very worn-out parties from previous governments mired in corruption and violence that, even today, sweeps the country. She presents herself as an independent, but she has been forced to take refuge in the voting power that only political parties can manage neighborhood by neighborhood, in the cities and in the States. There have been no shortage of clashes with the leaders of the parties he represents and after the failure in the first debate he promised to continue the trip without those burdens: “I’m going to screw up a lot of things, I’m going to be me and if they want me as I am, go ahead.” ”. In the second presidential debate, held on April 28, the candidates offered a whole concert of insults, but Gálvez reactivated cohesion among his people.
Claudia Sheinbaum, a 61-year-old doctor in Physics, is leading a campaign in line with her personality, austere and smooth, under the protection of favorable polls that do not push her to excessive changes, but quite the opposite. She relies both on her government experience in the capital and on the achievements of the federal Administration. This sometimes constitutes a double-edged sword that makes it vulnerable to the most notorious failures of the current federal government, as is the case of the violence unleashed in the country, which claims more than 30,000 victims a year on average.
The bloodiest election
The candidates are also suffering violence. More than 30 candidates, according to the consultancy Laboratory Electoral, have already died from gunshots or stab wounds, in the middle of the street and in the bright sun, many of them, which predicts the bloodiest election in Mexican history, in which there are also dozens threats and kidnappings. The crime that devours the country is one of the most notable blemishes in times of electoral campaign, when armed gangs or parties, or both, try to place their own, especially in mayor’s offices, with the blow of a gun. All in all, the elections are proceeding with the expected normality, between attacks from some against each other and criticism of a president of the Government who is prohibited by law from interfering in the campaign, but whose daily conferences sometimes exceed the established line, to the anger of the opposition.
In recent weeks, a whole artillery of proposals and clashes, of trips and rallies throughout the country are expected to gather the support of the undecided, 9% who still do not know who to vote for or do not respond, as well as to get the 11% who are not yet considering going to the polls. There is one last presidential debate missing, scheduled for May 19, the last time the candidates will meet before the polls give way to the reality of the polls.
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