Mexico City – Nationwide voting in a vote that will likely crown Mexico's first female president closed on Sunday, but the heat, violence and division continued into election day.
Polls at the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles closed at 5 p.m. People stranded at polling stations chanted “we want to vote” in front of the consulate.
In Cuitzeo county, in the western state of Michoacán, residents came out to vote despite a town council candidate being shot dead by two motorcycle gunmen just hours before the election. Residents voted under heavy police security, then passed the home of slain candidate Israel Delgado and lit candles for the well-known local politician at an impromptu shrine on his front porch.
Nationwide, voting was largely peaceful, but if the front-runner, former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, wins, she is unlikely to enjoy the same unconditional support as outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Both men are from the ruling Morena party.
This year, Mexican nationals living in Southern California have the opportunity to vote in Sunday's presidential election by visiting their local consulate.
Araceli Hernandez, 49, an international studies teacher at a university in Mexico City, said she would vote for Morena: “There are some things I don't like, like militarization, but there has been progress.”
Hernandez, referring to President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's policy of relying on the army and the paramilitary National Guard, rather than police, to fight crime, said he would vote to keep the ruling party in control of the country but “will remain critical” of some government policies.
Mexico City voter Yoselin Ramirez, 29, said she voted for Sheinbaum but split her vote for other offices because she didn't want anyone to have a supermajority.
“I don't want everything to be dominated by the same party, so I think there could be a bit more equality,” she said, without elaborating.
The main opposition candidate, Xochitl Gálvez, a technology entrepreneur and former senator, has sought to capitalize on Mexicans' concerns about their safety and promised a more aggressive approach to organized crime.
Nearly 100 million people are registered to vote in the election to choose a successor to outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Voters will also elect governors in nine of the country's 32 states, candidates for both houses of Congress, and thousands of mayors and other local offices in what has become the country's biggest and most violent elections ever.
The election is widely seen as a referendum on President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a populist who has expanded social programs but has done little to curb Mexico's drug cartel violence. His Morena party currently holds 23 of the country's 32 state governorships and a majority in both houses of Congress. Mexico's constitution bars the president from running for reelection.
Both presidential candidates are women, both of whom would be Mexico's first female presidents. A third candidate, Jorge Álvarez Maínez, from a smaller party, trailed far behind.
Sheinbaum is running for the Morena party and is the front-runner in the race, promising to continue all of Lopez Obrador's policies, including universal pensions for the elderly and apprenticeship allowances for young people.
Galvez, whose father is an indigenous Otomi, rose from selling snacks on the streets of his impoverished hometown to start his own technology company. The candidate for the main opposition coalition, he resigned from the senate last year to vent his anger at President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's “hugs, not bullets” policy, which seeks to avoid a confrontation with drug cartels. He has vowed to go after criminals more aggressively.
Continuing cartel violence and Mexico's mediocre economic performance are major concerns for voters.
Julio Garcia, a Mexico City office worker, said he voted for the opposition in the San Rafael district of central Mexico City. “They robbed me at gunpoint twice. We need to change direction, we need to change our leaders,” said Garcia, 34. “If we carry on doing the same thing, we will end up like Venezuela.”
In the San Andrés Totoltepec neighborhood on the outskirts of Mexico City, election officials passed Stefania Navarrete, a 34-year-old housewife, as she watched dozens of photographers and officials gather at a spot where front-runner Claudia Sheinbaum was scheduled to cast her vote.
Navarrete said he plans to vote for Scheinbaum despite his doubts about Lopez Obrador and his party.
“If we have a woman president, then for me, as a Mexican woman, it would mean going back to the situation before where being a woman meant I was limited to certain professions. That's not the case anymore.”
She said Scheinbaum's leadership's social programs are vital, but the worsening cartel violence in recent years is her biggest concern in this election.
“This is something the government needs to do more,” she said. “For me, security is the biggest challenge. The government says it will bring down the crime rate, but it's actually the opposite; crime has skyrocketed. Of course, I don't blame the president entirely, but in a way, he is also responsible.”
In Iztapalapa, Mexico City's largest district, Angelina Jimenez, a 76-year-old housewife, said she came to vote “to end this incompetent government that says we're doing good, but (still) causes so many deaths.”
She said she plans to vote for opposition candidate Xochitl Galvez, who has pledged to fight drug cartels, because she is genuinely concerned about the violence plaguing Mexico. “[Lopez Obrador]says we are better, but that's not true. We are worse.”
President Lopez Obrador has claimed to have reduced the country's all-time high murder rate by 20% since taking office in December 2018. But that's a claim based largely on shaky interpretations of statistics, and the actual murder rate appears to have only fallen by around 4% in six years.
Just as the planned rematch between Biden and Trump in November has highlighted deep divisions in the United States, Sunday's election revealed how deeply polarized public opinion is in Mexico over the country's direction, including security strategy and how to grow the economy.
Besides the fight for control of Congress, other important races include those for Mexico City's highest office, which is now considered equivalent to a state governorship — Sheinbaum is just the latest in a long line of Mexico City mayors, including Lopez Obrador, who later ran for president — and governorships in the larger, more populous states of Veracruz and Jalisco are also attracting attention.
Voting will begin at 8 am in most parts of the country and close at 6 pm (0000 GMT on Monday). The first preliminary partial results are expected to be announced by 9 pm (0300 GMT on Monday) after the final votes in various time zones close.
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Associated Press writer Fabiola Sanchez contributed to this report.
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