Mexicans were voting Sunday in an election that would give the nation its first female president, a groundbreaking event in a country where women could not vote for president until 1954.
“Never in my entire life did I imagine that a woman would be president of my country,” said Cristina Navarrete Santillán, 76, who went to the polls in the Tlalpan neighborhood, in the south of Mexico City, accompanied by her two daughters. and two granddaughters. “I'm glad I'm alive to see it.”
Navarrete voted for former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, the candidate hand-picked by outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the clear favorite in the race.
In second place in the polls is Xóchitl Gálvez Ruiz, a senator who heads a bloc of center-right parties largely united in their opposition to López Obrador. Far behind the candidates is Jorge Álvarez Máynez, member of Congress.
Candidate Xóchitl Gálvez Ruiz at a campaign event last year.
(Fernando Llano/Associated Press)
The election, one of the most divisive in recent history, is widely seen as a referendum on López Obrador, a controversial populist who has lifted millions out of poverty but has alarmed critics by weakening some of the country's democratic institutions. .
Many who voted for Sheinbaum on Sunday said they did so in the hope that she would continue the president's signature anti-poverty policies, particularly her administration's widespread welfare payments to students and seniors.
“She is going to continue with all the help that the president has given us,” said Rosa María Velazco, a 52-year-old teacher. “She will continue to support the poorest and she will be a great president.”
Those who voted for Gálvez, on the other hand, largely said they were inspired not so much by the candidate's profile or promised policies, but because she represented the end of López Obrador's government.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, president of Mexico, kneels during an indigenous ceremony during his inauguration in 2018.
(Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“I am very angry with this government,” said Julieta Jujnovsky, 45, a biology professor who cast her vote in the exclusive Mexico City enclave of Condesa.
Jujnovsky said he is not opposed so much to the president's leftist ideology but rather to his style of governing.
“He never wants to talk to the opposition,” said Jujnovsky, who said the president's efforts to reform the Supreme Court, cut the number of seats in Mexico's legislature and overhaul the country's electoral institute were “deeply worrying.”
“Democracy is about checks and balances and listening to the other side,” he said.
Sunday's historic elections are the largest ever held in Mexico, and voters also elected a new Congress, eight state governors, the mayor of Mexico City and some 20,000 local officials across the country. In some parts of the country, voters lined up before dawn.
That was the case in the middle-class neighborhood of San Andrés Totoltepec, where Sheinbaum grew up and where he voted early Sunday morning.
As the candidate took her place in a line of about 100 people to cast her vote, many in the crowd chanted, “President!”
Supporters of presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum crowd the Zócalo during her inaugural campaign rally in Mexico City on March 1.
(Aurea Del Rosario/Associated Press)
If Sheinbaum triumphs, as expected, many will look to his final margin of victory for clues about the breadth of his support. The final poll showed that Sheinbaum led Gálvez by 14 to more than 25 points.
His mentor won in a landslide six years ago by promising to finally put the “poor first” in a country he said had been hijacked by a corrupt, conservative elite. López Obrador's approval rating still exceeds 60%, making him one of the most popular leaders in Latin America.
When he leaves office in October, he will leave his successor with a strong economy that has been boosted by the relocation of foreign companies from Asia and elsewhere to Mexico. The Mexican peso has been among the strongest currencies in the world.
But the next president will also inherit a series of crises, including a severe water shortage, a struggling health system, persistent inequality and violence from criminal gangs and cartels so bad that the US State Department is warning its citizens. that they do not travel to many Mexican states.
López Obrador's controversial “hugs, not bullets” strategy – prioritizing social programs for young people over direct confrontations with cartels – has failed to stop violence in the country, although homicides have decreased somewhat in recent years. six years. Security is by far the main concern of Mexicans, surveys show.
While voters were fiercely divided on the central issues of the race, many on both sides of the political divide were elated to have the opportunity to vote for a woman.
Less than a third of United Nations countries have ever had a female leader, according to a Pew Research Center analysis last year. In Mexico, women have made great strides in politics since a 2019 constitutional reform established quotas requiring gender parity in all elected positions at the federal, state and municipal levels. They now represent about half of Congress.
Rosa María Beltrán, a 39-year-old dentist, said she was proud of her country.
“Tell the people of the United States that in Mexico we are going to have a president before them,” he said.
Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.
