MEXICO CITY: Two people were killed in violence at polling locations on Sunday in the midst of Mexico’s traditional election expected to make communist Claudia Sheinbaum, the ruling party member, the country’s first female leader.
The state political power announced that election was suspended at one polling facility after a person was killed in a shooting in the state of Puebla. It eventually confirmed another dying at a polling station in Tlapanala, likewise in Puebla.
Mexico’s largest- always votes have also been the most aggressive in modern history, with the shooting of 38 applicants. Worries about the risk of warring drug cartels to democracy have grown as a result of the fatal crime.
Sheinbaum, who has led in view elections over her primary competition Xochitl Galvez, will be tasked with confronting organized crime murder, if elected. Despite the fact that the crime rate has decreased over the course of his expression, more people have died in Mexico during the cheerful president’s administration than in any other administration in recent memory.
A win by either person would be a significant development for Mexico, a nation renowned for its macho culture. The winner will begin serving for a six-year word on October 1.
Sheinbaum described it as a “historic evening” and felt at ease and content as she headed to the polls on Sunday morning.
” People may get out to vote”, Sheinbaum, a mathematician and former Mexico City president, said on regional Television.
Before casting her ballot early on Sunday, Galvez, a businesswoman and former senator, had a conversation with her supporters. She is a member of an opposition coalition that includes the Institutional Revolutionary Party ( PRI), the right-wing PAN, and the leftist PRD party.
” I am really quite optimistic”, Galvez said, adding that she was expecting a hectic day.
Lopez Obrador, Sheinbaum’s leader, greeted supporters and posed for photos as he walked from the presidential palace to voting with his family.
There were long lines of voters outside polling places, even before they opened at 8 a. m. local time ( 1400 GMT ), with some reports of delayed openings.
” I always imagined that one time I did vote for a woman”, said 87- yr- ancient Edelmira Montiel, a Sheinbaum supporter in Tlaxcala, Mexico’s smallest state.
” Before we could n’t even vote, and when you could, it was to vote for the person your husband told you to vote for. Thanks to God, that has changed, and I can experience it,” Montiel continued.
Nearly 100 million Mexican are eligible to vote in Sunday’s vote. The mayor of Mexico City, eight valid, and both chambers of Congress are among the various jobs up for grabs. About 20, 000 elected jobs are on votes, the most in Mexico’s story.
The elections will close at 6 p. m. native period. Later on Sunday, the first formal initial results are anticipated.
Flooded with body
” The land is flooded with heart as a result of but little corruption”, said Rosa Maria Baltazar, 69, a vote in Mexico City’s top- end class Del Valle neighborhood. ” I want a change in the state in my state, something that will improve my quality of life.”
Lopez Obrador has loomed over the plan, attempting to turn the voting into a vote on his social goals. Sheinbaum has resisted accusations that she would be a “puppet” of Lopez Obrador, despite promising to carry out some of his plans, including those that have benefitted Mexico’s poorest.
” She is the most truthful”, said retirement and Sheinbaum- voting Antonio Cruz, 83, at a garden in downtown Monterrey, Mexico’s north commercial hub.
” She does n’t have such a strong voice, but what does that matter? She can use a speaker”.
Polls indicate that MORENA, the ruling party of Lopez Obrador and Sheinbaum, will likely fall short of securing a two- thirds majority in Congress. That would make it harder for Sheinbaum to pass on constitutional amendments to opposition parties.
At a time when the U.S. fentanyl epidemic is raging, the new president will face tense negotiations with the US over the large flows of US-bound migrants crossing Mexico and security cooperation over drug trafficking.
If Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidency in November, Mexican officials anticipate these negotiations will be more difficult. Trump has pledged to impose 100 % tariffs on Mexican-made Chinese cars, and he has said he will mobilize special forces to combat cartels.
The next president will be charged with addressing power and water shortages at home and luring manufacturers to relocate as part of the nearshoring trend, which involves moving supply chains closer to their main markets.
The winner of the election will also have to decide what to do with Pemex, the state oil giant that has seen declining production for 20 years and is drained of all debt.
Both candidates have pledged to expand welfare programs, despite Mexico having a sizable deficit this year and a sluggish GDP growth of just 1.5 % predicted by the central bank next year.
In Milpa Alta, in Mexico City’s rural south, subsistence farmer Maria Luisa Arelio, 50, said she and her family cast their votes for Sheinbaum.
Sheinbaum, who was a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, was” the most prepared among them,” said Arelio, adding that Sheinbaum could contribute to a rise in illegal deforestation when her own families were struggling to deal with the effects of climate change.
” We hope she understands our needs”.
