Mexico has begun counting votes after Sunday's election that will almost certainly result in the country's first female president.
The two favorites are Claudia Sheinbaum, from the ruling Morena party, supported by the ruling coalition Let's Keep Making History, and Xóchitl Gálvez, supported by a coalition of opposition parties.
Jorge Álvarez Maynez, a third candidate, is running on behalf of the Citizen Movement.
When the first votes began to arrive, Sheinbaum took an early lead, followed by Gálvez, according to opinion polls that placed the Morena candidate as the firm favorite to win the presidency.
In addition to the presidency, voters also voted for some 20,000 positions in what is the largest election ever held in the country.
According to the National Electoral Institute (INE), these positions include 128 seats in the Senate, 500 deputy seats, the governorship of Mexico City and governorships in eight states, including Chiapas, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Morelos, Puebla, Tabasco, Veracruz and Yucatan.
This is how the three parties behave in the presidential election, according to the latest updates from the INE:
When will we know the final results?
The results will likely not be final until June 8.
However, on June 2, Mexicans will have access to the quick count, a statistical projection that estimates voting trends from a random sample of 7,500 polling stations.
Between 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. (from 03:00-04:00 GMT) on June 2, the INE will announce the results of the quick count of the presidential elections. This announcement will be delivered in a nationally broadcast televised message.
Starting at 8:00 p.m. (02:00 GMT) on Sunday, the INE will also launch the Preliminary Electoral Results Program (PREP), a system that collects and publishes the data recorded by polling station officials. Al Jazeera will rely on this data for its vote count tracker, while also sharing the quick count when announced by election officials.
When will the new president of Mexico take over?
The new president of Mexico will take office on October 1, 2024, four months after election day.
This is the first time that the inauguration will take place on October 1 instead of December 1, following a change in electoral law in 2014.
Besides the presidency, what other races are you watching closely?
Regardless of who will be the country's next leader, the race for Congress remains key.
The ruling Morena party aims to achieve a two-thirds majority in Congress, important for revising the constitution and eliminating what it perceives as cumbersome and wasteful oversight agencies. The opposition, united in a loose coalition, says this action would represent a threat to Mexico's democratic institutions.
This could also affect the peso and how investors react to the elections.
“Yeah [Morena] “If he wins two-thirds of Congress, or comes disturbingly close, that becomes a more difficult decision for investors because it becomes a very different scenario, in which there are fewer limitations on power,” said Miguel Ángel Toro Ríos, dean from the Faculty of Social Sciences. and Government of Tecnológico de Monterrey, he told Al Jazeera.
In Mexico City, competition is fierce, with Clara Brugada of the ruling party, Santiago Taboada of the largest opposition coalition and Salomón Chertorivski of the Citizen Movement all locked in a tight race.
Governorships in large, populous states such as Veracruz and Jalisco are also attracting interest.
