Barring a major surprise, Mexico will have the first female president in its history in 2024. Federal elections will take place in the country on June 2nd, during which, among other things, the new head of state will be elected. Although polls continue to show his high popularity, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador She cannot run for re-election and the race is open to the two women who are leading in the polls.
Although his authoritarian tendencies for a time fueled fears that he would seek a new mandate that the Constitution prevented, AMLO blessed the person being considered as his successor. Claudia Sheinbaum won the primaries of the National Renewal Movement (Morena) against the former chancellor Marcelo Ebrard and will be the candidate of the governing coalition. All polls see her as the favorite.
AMLO’s explicit support was undoubtedly one of the reasons for Sheinbaum’s success, but not the only one. The environmental engineer, who specializes in energy issues, was mayor of Mexico City from 2018 to June 2022, before stepping down to take up the fight for the presidency.
Although she lacks the charisma and popularity of López Obrador, she managed to cultivate the image of a good manager in the Mexican capital and, thanks to a calculated ambiguity, win the support of very different sectors, which will be one of her advantages in trying to become president to become.
As mayor, Sheinbaum promoted several digitalization programs to reduce bureaucracy that were well received, and her management of the vaccination campaign during the pandemic was also praised in the Mexican media. But even under her mandate, the serious accident in the capital’s subway occurred in May 2021, which cost 25 people their lives, and voices were heard accusing the mayor of not investing enough in its maintenance.
Sheinbaum’s main rival in the June election will be Xochitl Galveza former senator elected by a diverse center-right coalition that adopted the bombastic name Fuerza y ​​​​Corazón por México.
Gálvez has cultivated an approachable image in the style that defined AMLO as president, but neither his image as he traveled around Mexico City on a bicycle nor his humble origins – as a young man he made a living selling tamales on the street – didn’t help him now. to bring their voting expectations closer to Sheinmbaum’s.
Raised in the state of Hidalgo, one of the poorest in central Mexico, she was born into a family of Otomi natives and learned their native language before Spanish, which she now tries to exploit to attract the humblest of voters. in his election campaign to become president.
Sheinbaum appears to be in a better position, but the recent history of electoral campaigns in Latin America makes it clear that nothing can be taken for granted. Despite her lead in the polls, Morena’s candidate still has some uncertainties to sort out. So far she has been fully behind AMLO’s decisions, but at some point she will have to emphasize her own personality and program, and it remains to be seen whether her political mentor will allow her to deviate from the script.
López Obrador has combined his populist rhetoric with uncompromising fiscal discipline that has been questioned by even the most orthodox economists, and Sheinbaum has often advocated for the state to intervene directly with aid and other measures to improve the lives of the poorest.
It is foreseeable that the candidate will run with the same messages against the unequal distribution of wealth in the country that have consolidated López Obrador’s popularity in recent years, but putting the promises into action will be difficult due to the increased deficit and the… , that the pension increase approved by the current government already puts almost a quarter of the budget at risk.
The other big problem will be violence and drug trafficking. Kidnappings and murders continue to be commonplace in Mexico. There were more than 15,000 homicides in Mexico in the first half of 2023 alone. AMLO defends the success of his policies based on tackling the causes of crime and moving away from the more harshly repressive approaches of his predecessors, but the reality is that the country remains largely in the hands of drug cartels, and no one seems to be doing it for them At the moment there is no solution to this evil.