A historic duel is approaching in the presidential elections of Mexico. For the first time, two women will compete for the leadership of the country in the elections of June 2024. The former mayor of Ciutat, Claudia Sheinbaum, is the candidate of the ruling party, the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), after winning on Wednesday in the primaries of the party.
The rival will be Xóchitl Gálvez, elected by the PRI to try to break the hegemony of the formation of the current head of state, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). The country is closer than ever to having its first female president. Sheinbaum’s victory in Morena’s internal process, which consisted of a survey of 12,500 citizens, was predictable, as he led the preliminary polls from the beginning. The ex-mayor obtained 39.4% of the votes, with which she surpassed her nearest rival, ex-chancellor Marcelo Ebrard, who obtained 25.6%. Sheinbaum is a close ally of the current president of Mexico.
Former chancellor Ebrard criticized the process and did not accept the results. The winning candidate winked at him: “Unity is fundamental and the doors are open and will never be closed. Democracy has won today, the people of Mexico have decided and I am the national coordinator of the defense of the fourth transformation”, she emphasized with reference to the reform program with which López Obrador came to power in 2018.
Last Thursday, López Obrador expressed support for the winner and asked Ebrard to work for the unity of the party.
The importance of the primaries derives from Morena’s hegemony in the Mexican political landscape. Such is the influence and presence of López Obrador’s party that his successor in the presidential elections has many numbers to be elected. The current president cannot run for a second six-year term.
For the first time in history, the two preferred presidential candidates are women, so the chances of Mexico being led by a woman are almost absolute. Senator Xóchitl Gálvez, an engineer by profession, was chosen over the weekend to head the candidacy of the three-party opposition coalition led by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico for most of the century 20th It also includes the PAN, favorable to employers.
With a relaxed communication style and an aura of a self-made businesswoman, Gálvez has arrived to cheer up a battle that already seemed to have been won by Morena. The senator has become known in recent weeks for the confrontations with López Obrador, who put some statements in her mouth that she did not make. This has given notoriety to the politics of indigenous origin.
Sheinbaum is a strong supporter of Mexico’s “fourth transformation”, as López Obrador’s political project is called, and has become one of the country’s key political figures. “Mexico is ready for a president, an astronaut, an engineer. Mexican women have been ready for a long time,” said the former mayor.
