Elections in Mexico: Voters elect new president after violent campaign

Mexicans are voting in an election that will almost certainly elect the country’s first female president.

Both frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum and her main rival Xóchitl Gálvez are far ahead of the only male candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, in the polls.

Voters also elect all members of the Mexican Congress and the governors of eight states as well as the head of government of Mexico City.

The election campaign was marred by violent attacks. According to government figures, more than 20 local candidates were killed across Mexico, but private estimates put the total at 37.

Ms. Sheinbaum, a 61-year-old scientist who served as mayor of Mexico City from 2018 to 2023, enjoys the support of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Mr López Obrador, who has been in power since 2018, cannot run for the highest office again because the Mexican Constitution limits a president to a single six-year term.

The popular politician – recent polls put his approval rating at nearly 60 percent – has instead thrown his weight behind Ms Sheinbaum, who belongs to his Morena party.

Although President López Obrador has failed to keep many of the promises he made when he took office, his efforts to reduce poverty and help older Mexicans have been met with widespread approval by the beneficiaries of these social programs.

While the president’s support has significantly expanded Sheinbaum’s voting base, it also raises questions about how independent she is from the sometimes overpowering leader.

Ms. Sheinbaum stressed that she is an independent woman, but at the same time pledged to continue to build on what she saw as Mr. López Obrador’s many achievements.

Her party, Morena, boasts that millions of Mexicans have escaped poverty in the past six years.

According to Morena, the number of people living in poverty is decreasing thanks to the country’s policies, such as more than doubling the minimum wage.

However, economists point out that other factors also play a role, such as the increasing number of remittances from Mexicans living abroad to friends and family at home.

Senator and businesswoman Xóchitl Gálvez is running against Ms. Sheinbaum in the election.

Gálvez, 61, was elected by a broad coalition of parties that share a desire to end the rule of the Morena party.

She and the coalition “Strength and Heart for Mexico,” for which she is running, have criticized the increase in violence in the country in the run-up to the elections.

At her final rally, she assured Mexicans that if they voted for her, they would have “the bravest president, a president who stands up to crime.”

And although she has repeatedly derided the strategy that López Obrador laid out at the beginning of his presidency, when he promised “hugs not bullets” in the fight against crime, Ms. Gálvez has offered few details about how she plans to combat the powerful criminal groups responsible for much of the violence plaguing the country.

She has announced that she will pay the police better and invest more in security in general.

But what has likely boosted her popularity among voters critical of the outgoing president is her promise to strengthen institutions that they believe López Obrador was trying to weaken, such as the Constitutional Court and the National Electoral Institute.

Ms. Gálvez accused López Obrador of being authoritarian and undermining Mexico’s democratic institutions, calling his government “arrogant and presumptuous.”

Polls close at 01:00 BST (18:00 local time) and the winning candidate will take office in late September.