Mexico's presidential candidates ended a stormy and violent campaign ahead of Sunday's election, with each claiming will be the guardian of democracy amid fierce debates about the future of the country's political system, reports the “Financial Times”, quoted by BTA.
Polls show that Claudia Scheinbaum of the ruling leftist National Movement for Renewal (MORENA), a left-leaning former climatologist, has a double-digit lead over businesswoman Sochitel Galvez, who is a candidate from a three-party opposition coalition, in the race for the presidency. These are the most important and largest elections in Mexico, where voters will also elect regional governors, a new Congress and thousands of local officials.
The vote comes as the US's biggest trading partner senses an opportunity to attract more investment amid trade tensions between Washington and China. However, the country is also struggling with increasing violence and organized crime.
Sheinbaum, who previously served as Mexico's mayor, addressed supporters in the capital's central square on Wednesday, pledging to uphold the policies of her mentor, outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
„Today we have a country with less poverty, less inequality, but also with historic levels of foreign investment”, she said, adding: “We are strengthening democracy as a power of the people, by the people and for the people.&ldquo ;
However, the campaign was marked by violence, according to the “Financial Times”. More than 30 candidates were killed, including one mayoral candidate on Tuesday.
The extreme heat also led to dozens of deaths and power outages across the country. In the capital, where according to polls the battle for the mayoral post is much more contested than the presidential race, the authorities this week tightened the water regime in several districts.
Water shortages are not a new phenomenon for the Latin American country, especially in the overcrowded capital of Mexico, but some voters blame the ruling MORENA party for the crisis and analysts say this could prove to be an important factor in the upcoming vote, especially in some of the more contested local election races, notes Reuters.
Whoever wins will have to contend with water shortages, as 30 of Mexico's 32 states are affected by drought according to official statistics.
Gálvez, who closed her campaign in the northern industrial city of Monterrey, presented her coalition as a defense against the authoritarian ruling party, which is trying to control independent institutions such as the Supreme Court. She condemned the government's health and security policies and said she would be a “crime-fighting president”.
„This government is arrogant, omnipotent, it does not see and it does not listen,” Galvez said in his speech in a concert hall.
The third presidential candidate, Jorge Alvarez Maynes, performed better than expected with a campaign aimed at younger voters. His support hovers around 10 percent.
Some voters are excited that Mexico is likely to have its first female leader.
The election is also seen as a plebiscite on the policies of López Obrador, who has increased cash benefits for some social groups, built infrastructure, including a new railway line in the south of the country, and raised the minimum wage, helping him maintain his approval rating .
In recent weeks, Sheinbaum and Galvez have raised some questions about the election process.
Sheinbaum warned his supporters to show up at the polls to avoid electoral fraud, while Galvez said the president was unfairly helping his party's candidate and that organized crime would influence the vote, with about 4 percent of polling stations there is no opposition oversight.
Analysts said that if Scheinbaum wins, as polls suggest, her policies will be heavily influenced by the position of her coalition in Congress.
„If Claudia wins by a very large margin, she won't have much incentive to moderate... if her result is more modest, we'll probably hear a more conciliatory and moderate tone,” said Carlos Ramirez, a consultant at “ ;Integralia“. “On Sunday, we will see the real face of Claudia", he added.
V. "The Times of Israel" notes that her maternal grandparents were Sephardic Jews who fled Bulgaria to Mexico in the 1940s to escape the Holocaust. Her paternal grandparents were Ashkenazi Jews who immigrated from Lithuania in the 1920s. The AP recalls that she was born in Mexico and her parents did not raise her in any religion. According to her campaign team, Scheinbaum considers herself a woman of faith, but is not religiously bound.