By Lizbeth Diaz and Sarah Kinosian
MEXICO CITY -Mexican voters endured lengthy waits on Sunday to solid ballots in a historic election anticipated to make leftist Claudia Sheinbaum, the ruling occasion candidate, the nation’s first lady president.
Sheinbaum has led in opinion polls over her foremost competitor Xochitl Galvez, who represents an opposition coalition comprised of the Institutional Revolutionary Get together (PRI), the right-wing PAN and the leftist PRD occasion.
A victory by both lady would characterize a serious step for Mexico, a rustic recognized for its macho tradition. The winner, set to start a six-year time period on Oct. 1, will face formidable challenges together with addressing organized crime violence.
On her approach to vote on Sunday morning, Sheinbaum informed journalists it was a “historic day” and that she felt comfy and content material.
“Everyone must get out to vote,” Sheinbaum, a physicist and former Mexico Metropolis mayor, mentioned on native TV.
Galvez, a businesswoman and senator, chatted with supporters as she arrived to solid her poll shortly after polls opened.
“God is with me,” Galvez mentioned, including that she was anticipating a tough day.
Outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Sheinbaum’s mentor, greeted supporters and posed for images as he walked from the presidential palace to vote along with his spouse.
There have been lengthy strains of voters exterior polling locations, even earlier than they opened at 8 a.m. native time (1400 GMT), with some experiences of delayed openings.
“It seems like a dream to me. I never imagined that one day I would vote for a woman,” mentioned 87-year-old Edelmira Montiel, a Sheinbaum supporter in Tlaxcala, Mexico’s smallest state.
“Before we couldn’t even vote, and when you could, it was to vote for the person your husband told you to vote for. Thank God that has changed and I get to live it,” Montiel added.
The marketing campaign has been marred by violence, with 38 candidates murdered together with an area candidate who was fatally shot on Saturday evening. That’s the highest toll in Mexico’s fashionable historical past, stoking considerations about the specter of warring drug cartels to democracy.
Virtually 100 million Mexicans are eligible to vote in Sunday’s election. Different positions up for grabs embrace Mexico Metropolis’s mayor, eight governorships and each chambers of Congress. About 20,000 elected positions are on ballots, probably the most in Mexico’s historical past.
The polls will shut at 6 p.m. native time (0000 GMT on Monday). The primary official preliminary outcomes are anticipated late on Sunday.
‘FLOODED WITH BLOOD’
“The country is flooded with blood as a result of so much corruption,” mentioned Rosa Maria Baltazar, 69, a voter in Mexico Metropolis’s upper-middle class Del Valle neighborhood. “I wish for a change of government for my country, something for a better life.”
Lopez Obrador has loomed over the marketing campaign, looking for to show the vote right into a referendum on his political agenda. Sheinbaum has rejected opposition claims that she could be a “puppet” of Lopez Obrador, although she has pledged to proceed lots of his insurance policies together with people who have helped Mexico’s poorest.
Polls point out that Morena is more likely to fall wanting securing a two-thirds majority in Congress. That might make it tougher for Sheinbaum to push constitutional reforms previous opposition events, together with the PRI, which dominated Mexico for about seven a long time till democratic elections in 2000.
Challenges forward for the subsequent president additionally embrace addressing electrical energy and water shortages and luring producers to relocate as a part of the nearshoring pattern, wherein firms transfer provide chains nearer to their foremost markets. The election winner additionally should wrestle with what to do with Pemex, the state oil large that has seen manufacturing decline for twenty years and is drowning in debt.
Each candidates have promised to broaden welfare packages, although Mexico has a big deficit this 12 months and sluggish GDP progress of simply 1.5% anticipated by the central financial institution subsequent 12 months.
The brand new president will face tense negotiations with america over the massive flows of U.S.-bound migrants crossing Mexico and safety cooperation over drug trafficking at a time when the U.S. fentanyl epidemic rages.
Mexican officers anticipate these negotiations to be tougher if the U.S. presidency is gained by Donald Trump in November. Trump, the primary U.S. president to be convicted of against the law, has vowed to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese language automobiles made in Mexico and mentioned he would mobilize particular forces to combat the cartels.
Sam Castillo, a 25-year-old dancer who lives between Oaxaca state and Mexico Metropolis, mentioned he hoped Sheinbaum might be stronger on overseas relations than Lopez Obrador had been.
As he waited to vote at a polling place within the Florida district within the south of Mexico Metropolis, he mentioned he felt higher with the leftist Morena in energy as a part of the LGBT neighborhood.
“What we have seen with gender legislation, with marriage equality, for me it has to do with party,” Castillo mentioned.
