Presidential campaign begins in Mexico amid offers of continuity and criticism of violence

Among offers from the ruling party to continue the political project of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and calls from the opposition not to resign themselves to the advance of crime, Mexico The campaign for the largest elections in its history began on Friday, which could bring a woman to the presidency for the first time.

Although the events to promote the candidates began months ago, the electoral campaign that began on Friday and will last for 90 days, marks the final stretch for the June 2 elections in which more than 20,000 federal and local positions will be elected. In addition to the presidency, eight governorships and the mayor of Mexico City, 500 deputies and 128 senators.

While the candidate of the ruling Morena party, Claudia Sheinbaum, called a rally in the main square of Mexico City, where she was mayor for five years, opponents Xóchitl Gálvez and Jorge Álvarez Máynez organized events in cities in the center and northwest of the country plagued by violence.

Under the slogan “Mexico without fear,” former Senator Gálvez began her campaign in the central city of Fresnillo, in the state of Zacatecas, where the bloody territorial fight between the Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación cartels has left dozens dead and a trail of terror among residents.

Accompanied by several hundred people who carried lit candles and shouted “Xóchitl, president!”, the 61-year-old engineer and businesswoman walked in the middle of the night through some of the dangerous streets of the city, of about 240,000 inhabitants, and hugged to a woman crying for a missing relative.

Gálvez promised a strong hand to confront criminal groups, he promised to give priority to the victims of the violence and to the relatives of the disappeared, to strengthen the police and the “demilitarization” of the country, and to remove soldiers and sailors from civilian activities in clear opposition to López Obrador’s policies.

“The hugs for criminals are over. The law will be applied to them.” He said in reference to the phrase “hugs, not bullets” that the president uses to explain his security policy, aimed at addressing the causes of violence rather than a frontal attack on the aggressors.

Gálvez also accused Sheinbaum of being “indifferent to the pain of others and cold in the face of tragedies” and of supporting the continuity of a government that “has normalized violence and wants us to get used to barbarism.”

The opposition included the United States in her security proposals and stated that she was willing to promote a binational customs agency and impose greater controls to stop the import of weapons from the neighboring country.

With this event, the candidate of the Fuerza y ​​Corazón coalition for Mexico — formed by the National Action (PAN), Institutional Revolutionary (PRI) and Democratic Revolution (PRD) parties — seeks to make it clear that one of the flags of its campaign will be to attack violence, one of the most questioned flanks of López Obrador’s six-year term. said Roy Campos, president of the public opinion polling company Consulta-Mitofsky.

Mexico closed 2023 with around 30,000 murders, consolidating the trend of recent years with similar figures, according to data from the Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection. The government maintains that the daily average of murders fell to 81 last year, below the 2022 average of 91.

Asked by The Associated Press about the challenges of the campaign, Gálvez admitted that the challenge is that “I have two candidates: the presidential candidate and the official candidate.”

The opposition usually accuses López Obrador, whose popularity is around 60%, of using his position and his daily press conferences to attack his adversaries and promote Sheinbaum, something that the president has rejected. “Out of respect for your candidate, democracy and the people, take your hands off this election now”Gálvez demanded.

Despite going down in the polls, she appears confident and assures that her greatest advantage is that “I don’t have to validate the president’s policies.” But her relationship with the old and questioned PAN, PRI and PRD could weigh against her and take away votes, Campos acknowledged.

On his first day of the campaign, Gálvez will also visit the cities of Aguascalientes and Irapuato, also hit by clashes between criminal gangs and cartels.

Sheinbaum, who according to the polls leads his rivals by more than 20 points, announced the day before that at his rally in the Zócalo he will present 100 proposals to promote the “second floor of the transformation” and continue the project of Lopez Obradorknown as the “Fourth Transformation”.

“We are the vast majority who defend and hope that the transformation continues, that there is no going back on the achievements achieved,” assured the 61-year-old scientist, who among her proposals mentioned austerity and financial discipline, honesty, energy and food sovereignty, restoration of the environment, the consolidation of strategic projects and the strengthening of security and local and foreign private investment.

Unlike her rivals, Sheinbaum has shown herself to be “less disruptive” and more oriented toward defending unity within Morena, and has left the “dirty work” of attacking her adversaries in the hands of López Obrador, Campos said.

The analyst indicated that, although he does not expect changes in the campaign strategy, the negative evaluation of the official governors of Chiapas, Tabasco, Puebla, Morelos or Veracruz – in dispute in the elections – could lead Sheinbaum to make some adjustments.

For his part, Álvarez Máynez, leader of the minority opposition party Citizen Movement, will begin his campaign in Lagos de Moreno, one of the 50 municipalities with the highest crime rate in the country and the most violent in the northwestern state of Jalisco.

Facing rivals who have been campaigning for months, the 38-year-old politician entered the presidential race at the beginning of the year after the abandonment in December of Samuel García, governor of Nuevo León and leader of the party, due to a struggle with local adversaries. .

Although some point out his little political experience and his limited chances of winning, Álvarez Máynez told the AP that he is confident that he will surprise and manage to “turn the score around.”

“I have not done a single day of campaigning and this race is going to change script as soon as we leave on March 1st,” stated the former deputy, who noted that his objective is to reach young voters. “I represent the new and I have an impeccable and honest track record, and they represent the past.”