Although the events to promote the candidates began months ago, the election campaign which began today and will last for 90 days, marks the final stretch for the June 2 elections in which more than 20,000 federal and local positions will be elected, in addition to the presidency, eight governorships and the mayor of Mexico City , 500 deputies and 128 senators.
While the ruling party candidate Morena, Claudia Sheinbaumcalled a rally in the main square of Mexico City, where she was mayor for five years, the opponents Xochitl Galvez y Jorge Álvarez Máynez They organized events in cities in the center and northwest of the country plagued by violence.
Attack violence
Under the slogan “Mexico without fear,” former Senator Gálvez began her campaign in the central city of Fresnillo, in the state of Zacatecas, where the bloody territorial fight between the cartels of Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation It has left dozens dead and a trail of terror among residents.
Accompanied by several hundred people who carried lit candles and shouted “Xóchitl, president!”, the 61-year-old engineer and businesswoman walked in the middle of the night through some of the dangerous streets of the city, of about 240,000 inhabitants, and hugged to a woman crying for a missing relative.
Galvez promised a tough hand To confront criminal groups, he committed to giving priority to the victims of violence and the relatives of the missing, to strengthening the police and the “demilitarization” of the country, and to removing soldiers and sailors from civilian activities in a clear manner. opposition to López Obrador’s policies.
“The hugs for criminals are over. The law will be applied to them,” he said, referring to the phrase “hugs, not bullets” that the president uses to explain his security policy, aimed at addressing the causes of violence rather than a frontal attack on the aggressors.
Gálvez also accused Sheinbaum of being “indifferent to the pain of others and cold in the face of tragedies” and of supporting the continuity of a government that “has normalized violence and wants us to get used to barbarism.”
The opposition included the United States in her security proposals and stated that she was willing to promote a binational customs agency and impose greater controls to stop the import of weapons from the neighboring country.
With this event, the candidate of the Fuerza y Corazón por México coalition – formed by the National Action (PAN), Institutional Revolutionary (PRI) and Democratic Revolution (PRD) parties – seeks to make it clear that one of the flags of her campaign will be to attack violence, one of the most questioned sides of López Obrador’s six-year term, said Roy Campos, president of the public opinion polling company Consulta-Mitofsky.
Mexico closed 2023 with around 30,000 murders, consolidating the trend of recent years with similar figures, according to data from the Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection. The government maintains that the daily average of murders fell to 81 last year, below the 2022 average of 91.
The challenge of two candidates
Regarding the challenges of the campaign, Gálvez admits that the challenge is that “I have two candidates: the presidential candidate and the official candidate.”
The opposition usually accuses López Obrador, whose popularity is around 60%, of using his position and his daily press conferences to attack his adversaries and promote Sheinbaum, something that the president rejects. “Out of respect for his candidate, democracy and the people, take your hands off this election now,” Gálvez demanded.
Despite going down in the polls, she appears confident and assures that her greatest advantage is that “I don’t have to validate the president’s policies.” But her relationship with the old and questioned PAN, PRI and PRD could weigh against her and take away votes, Campos acknowledged.
On his first day of the campaign, Gálvez will also visit the central cities of Aguascalientes and Irapuato, also hit by clashes between criminal gangs and cartels.
Within hours of the opponent’s arrival in Irapuato, state of Guanajuato, among its inhabitants there is expectation about the start of the campaign.
María Bermúdez, 21, was waiting in a plaza for the opening of a store and stated that she has doubts that changes could occur in Mexico with the arrival of a woman to the presidency. She believes that around 30% of the population still maintains sexist attitudes. “It will always be like this. Just like racism, it is something very difficult to change,” she added.
A similar position was expressed by Armando Fernández, a 61-year-old government employee: “It seems to me that with the problem of violence in Guanajuato, if it got out of hand with a man, imagine with a woman.”
But Alejandro Zárate was more optimistic and indicated that Mexico is prepared to be governed by a woman and said that he was confident that the winner would be Sheinbaum. “There is an abyss of difference. Claudia is very prepared. The other, Gálvez, is a clown, a circus,” he said.
Continuity of the “Fourth Transformation”
Sheinbaum, who according to polls leads his rivals by more than 20 points, announced the day before that at his rally in the Zócalo he will present 100 proposals to promote the “second floor of the transformation” and continue the project of López Obrador, well-known as the “Fourth Transformation”.
“We are the vast majority who defend and hope that the transformation continues, that there is no going back in the achievements achieved,” said the 61-year-old scientist, who among her proposals mentioned austerity and financial discipline, honesty, sovereignty energy and food, the restoration of the environment, the consolidation of strategic projects and the strengthening of security and local and foreign private investment.
Unlike her rivals, Sheinbaum has shown herself to be “less disruptive” and more oriented toward defending unity within Morena, and has left the “dirty work” of attacking her adversaries in the hands of López Obrador, Campos said.
The analyst indicated that, although he does not expect changes in the campaign strategy, the negative evaluation of the official governors of Chiapas, Tabasco, Puebla, Morelos or Veracruz – in dispute in the elections – could lead Sheinbaum to make some adjustments.
Seek the young vote
For his part, Álvarez Máynez, leader of the minority opposition party Citizen Movement, will begin his campaign in Lagos de Moreno, one of the 50 municipalities with the highest crime rate in the country and the most violent in the northwestern state of Jalisco.
Faced with rivals who have been campaigning for months, the 38-year-old politician entered the presidential race at the beginning of the year after the abandonment in December of Samuel García, governor of Nuevo León and leader of the party, due to a struggle with local adversaries. .
Although some point out his little political experience and his limited chances of winning, Álvarez Máynez said he is confident that he will surprise and manage to “turn the score around.”
“I have not done a single day of campaigning and this race is going to change script as soon as we leave on March 1,” said the former deputy, who noted that his objective is to reach young voters. “I represent the new and I have an impeccable and honest track record, and they represent the past,” he said.
Source: With information from AP
