Mexico faces biggest election in history

Odds are woman will be elected new president

• Campaigning formally starts on Friday for the biggest election in Mexico’s history.

Voters will choose the president, along with the winners of 628 seats in Congress and thousands of local positions. Elections will occur in all 32 jurisdictions, with more than 20,000 positions up for grabs, making it the country’s largest election, according to the National Electoral Institute.

The country of 130 million people has often been marked by its “macho” culture. Now it is almost certain to elect its first woman president.

WHEN IS THE ELECTION?

Parties selected their candidates well before the official start of campaigning for the presidential, congressional and municipal elections. On June 2, millions of voters will turn out at the polls to vote for their new leaders. The winner of the presidential elections will serve a six-year term. Mexicans will also vote for 128 senators, 500 congressional representatives and for tens of thousands of local government positions.

WHO IS RUNNING?

Leading presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum has enjoyed a comfortable lead, with around 59 per cent of the vote, according to a February poll. The former mayor of Mexico City, Sheinbaum is seen as a continuation of populist leftist leader Lopez Obrador and is backed by his Morena party.

Senator Xochitl Galvez is in second with around 36 per cent of the vote. Galvez is a fierce critic of Lopez Obrador and is running under the Strength and Heart for Mexico coalition. Trailing behind both is little-known Jorge Alvarez Maynez of the Citizen Movement party.

OTHER RISKS

In swaths of the country eclipsed by cartel violence, many have raised concerns about a security crisis that has spiralled under Lopez Obrador. In the first two months of the year, a handful of candidates were slain before the election season officially began.

For critics, the election has become increasingly about democratic concerns, which fuelled massive February protests against electoral reforms made by Lopez Obrador. However, the leader remains popular for many in Mexico’s working class.

STEP FORWARD

A female president would be a huge step in a country with soaring levels of gender-based violence and deep gender disparities.

Mexico still has an intense “machismo,” or male chauvinism, culture, expressed in a high rate of femicides.