Mexico – Likely Female Victor in June President Election
By Nicolas Medina Mora
April 7, 2024 – In June, when Mexico holds its fifth federal election since the end of one-party rule, Claudia Sheinbaum is almost certain to be elected president. An environmental scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, Sheinbaum is affiliated with the incumbent Movement for National Regeneration, or Morena. Most polls give her a double-digit advantage over the main challenger, Xóchitl Gálvez, a businesswoman and former senator nominated by a center-right coalition of opposition parties, Strength and Heart for Mexico. The third candidate is Jorge Álvarez Máynez, a congressman running under the auspices of a smaller organization, the Citizens’ Movement, or MC.
Sheinbaum is likely to win for a simple reason: she has the blessing of the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO. Surveys, which are typically very politicized, show that many Mexicans are disappointed in López Obrador’s administration; he has achieved modest reductions in poverty but failed to deliver on his promise of social transformation. But their disillusionment does not extend to the man himself. The president is poised to finish the single six-year term allowed by the Mexican Constitution with high approval ratings; the figures range from 50 to 70 percent.
His endorsement amounts to a coronation. A vote of confidence from such a beloved figure is enough to convince many, if not most, citizens. Not to leave matters to chance, Morena has openly, and at times illegally, thrown the weight of the state apparatus behind Sheinbaum’s campaign—a widespread practice across the political spectrum that López Obrador denounced during his two unsuccessful bids for the presidency in 2006 and 2012.
Where Next for Mexico? | Nicolás Medina Mora | The New York Review of Books (nybooks.com)
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