Written by Lizbeth Diaz and Sarah Kenosian
MEXICO CITY – Mexican voters waited long hours Sunday to cast their ballots in a historic election that is expected to make the ruling party's leftist candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum, the country's first female president.
Sheinbaum led in the polls over her main rival, Xochitl Galvez, who represents an opposition coalition consisting of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the right-wing National Action Party, and the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution.
A win for either woman would be a big step for Mexico, a country known for its macho culture. The winner, who is scheduled to begin his six-year term on October 1, will face daunting challenges including tackling the violence of organized crime.
On her way to vote Sunday morning, Sheinbaum told reporters that it was a “historic day” and that she felt comfortable and satisfied.
“Everyone should get out and vote,” Sheinbaum, a physicist and former Mexico City mayor, said on local television.
Galvez, a businesswoman and senator, spoke to supporters as she arrived to cast her vote shortly after polls opened.
“God is with me,” Galvez said, adding that she was anticipating a difficult day.
Outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum's mentor, greeted supporters and took photos as he left the presidential palace to vote with his wife.
There were long lines of voters outside polling stations, even before they opened at 8 a.m. local time (1400 GMT), with some reports of delays in opening polling stations.
“It seems like a dream to me,” said Edelmira Montiel, 87, a Sheinbaum supporter in Tlaxcala, Mexico’s smallest state. “I never imagined that one day I would vote for a woman.”
“Before, we couldn't even vote, and when we could, it was for the person your husband asked you to vote for,” Montiel added. “Thank God that has changed, and I have to live through that.”
The election campaign was marred by violence, with 38 candidates killed, including a local candidate who was shot dead on Saturday evening. This is the highest death toll in Mexico's modern history, raising concerns about the threat warring drug cartels pose to democracy.
About 100 million Mexicans are eligible to cast their votes in Sunday's elections. Other positions up for grabs include Mexico City's mayor, eight governors and both chambers of Congress. There are about 20,000 elected positions on the ballot, the largest number in Mexican history.
Polls are scheduled to close at 6 p.m. local time (0000 GMT Monday). Official preliminary results are expected late Sunday.
“soaked in blood”
“The country is soaked in blood as a result of this massive corruption,” said Rosa Maria Baltazar, 69, a voter in Mexico City's upper-middle-class Del Valle neighborhood. “I hope to change the government in my country, for a better life.”
López Obrador has clouded the election campaign, as he sought to turn the vote into a referendum on his political agenda. Sheinbaum rejected opposition claims that she would be a “puppet” of Lopez Obrador, though she pledged to continue many of his policies including those that helped poor people in Mexico.
Opinion polls indicate that Morena is unlikely to be able to obtain a two-thirds majority in Congress. This would make it more difficult for Sheinbaum to push constitutional reforms beyond opposition parties, including the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled Mexico for nearly seven decades until democratic elections in 2000.
Challenges awaiting the next president also include addressing electricity and water shortages and enticing manufacturers to relocate as part of a near-term trend, in which companies move their supply chains closer to their key markets. The winner of the election will also have to grapple with what to do with Pemex, the state oil giant that has seen production decline for two decades and is drowning in debt.
Both candidates have promised to expand social welfare programs, even though Mexico is running a large deficit this year and GDP growth slows to just 1.5% as the central bank expects next year.
The new president will face tense negotiations with the United States over huge flows of US-bound migrants crossing Mexico and security cooperation on drug trafficking at a time when the US fentanyl epidemic is raging.
Mexican officials expect these negotiations to be more difficult if Donald Trump wins the US presidency in November. Trump, the first US president to be convicted of a crime, has pledged to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese cars made in Mexico and said he would mobilize special forces to fight the cartels.
Sam Castillo, a 25-year-old dancer who lives between Oaxaca and Mexico City, said he hopes Sheinbaum will be stronger on foreign relations than Lopez Obrador was.
As he waited to cast his vote at a polling station in the Florida district south of Mexico City, he said he felt better with the leftist Morena in power as part of the gay community.
“What we've seen in terms of gender legislation, marriage equality, for me it comes down to party,” Castillo said.