Mexico Election Race Heats Up As Two Women Vie For Presidency

Fresnillo, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 1st Mar, 2024) Campaigning officially began Friday for elections likely to produce Mexico's first woman president -- a watershed for a nation with a long tradition of macho culture.

Opposition candidate Xochitl Galvez launched her campaign after the stroke of midnight in one of Mexico's most dangerous states, seeking to tap into voter concerns about the country's rampant violence.

Public opinion polls suggest that she faces a tough battle against ruling party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum, a former Mexico City mayor and close ally of outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, known by his initials AMLO.

With three months to go before the June 2 vote, Sheinbaum, a 61-year-old scientist by training, enjoys a significant lead with 63 percent support, according to according to an average of polls compiled by the Oraculus research firm.

Galvez, also 61, has 31 percent support, while Jorge Alvarez, 38, of the Citizens' Movement party is a distant third with just five percent, polls show.

At stake is the future of Latin America's second-largest economy, a country of 126 million people that is a key trading partner of the United States and a major tourist destination, but which faces huge challenges from illegal migration and drug-related violence.

Galvez, an outspoken businesswoman with Indigenous roots, sought to put the focus on the country's insecurity with a night-time rally in the city of Fresnillo in the violence-wracked central state of Zacatecas.

She led a candle-lit march through the streets before sharing the stage with a relative of one of Mexico's more than 100,000 missing persons, holding a minute's silence for victims of violence.

"Here in Fresnillo, as in all of Mexico, people are afraid," Galvez said, hitting out at Lopez Obrador's "hugs not bullets" strategy to tackle violent crime at its roots by combating poverty and inequality, rather than using military force.

"Hugs for criminals are over," she said.

"To have a Mexico without fear, we're going to restrain the most violent and aggressive criminal organizations in our country," she added.

It was the first of several planned stops in cities considered by their residents to be among the most unsafe in Mexico, to highlight what Galvez says is the government's failure to tackle spiraling violence.

Nearly 450,000 people have been murdered across Mexico since 2006 when then-president Felipe Calderon launched a controversial anti-drug military campaign, according to official figures.