Mexico Elects First Woman President In ‘Bloodiest Election In Modern History’

• Before Sunday’s vote, 37 candidates had been assassinated.

• The presidential election was between two major candidates who are female.

• The ruling party of President Lopez Obrador emerged victorious in the election and other important polls.

Eko Hot Blog reports that Morena party’s Claudia Sheinbaum, a climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, is set to become Mexico’s first female president after a landslide victory.

She won the presidency with 58.3-60.7 percent of the vote, according to a rapid sample count by Mexico’s electoral authority, in what would be the highest vote percentage in Mexico’s democratic history, Al Jazeera reports.

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The ruling coalition was also on track for a possible two-thirds supermajority in both houses of Congress, which would allow the coalition to pass constitutional reforms without opposition support.

The ruling Morena party also won the Mexico City mayorship race, one of the country’s most important posts, according to preliminary results.

Sheinbaum just addressed her supporters, promising fiscal discipline, freedom of the press and a continuation of Lopez Obrador’s social programmes.

She also posted on X: “For the first time in 200 years of our Republic, there will be a woman president and she will be transformative. Thanks to all Mexicans. Today with our vote we demonstrated we’re a democratic people.”

In another post on X, the president-elect said she will not let the country down.

“We have made possible the continuity and progress of the fourth transformation. I commit to you that I will not let you down. There is history, there is homeland, there is people, and there is commitment,” Sheinbaum wrote.

Meanwhile, opposition candidate Xochitl Galvez conceded defeat after preliminary results showed her taking between 26.6 and 28.6 percent of the vote.

“A few minutes ago, I contacted … Sheinbaum to acknowledge the election result. I told her that I saw a Mexico with a lot of pain and violence and that I hope she can resolve the serious problems of our people,” she was quoted as saying by local media.

In a post on X, Galvez stated that the country can always count on her as a warrior for life, truth and freedom.

She wrote, “Being your candidate has been the greatest honour of my life. They will always count on me as a warrior who will fight for a country in which life, truth and freedom are respected. Let’s go ahead and long live Mexico!”

BACKGROUND

The election was always likely to give Mexico its first woman president as voters decided between Sheinbaum, a former academic who promised to advance the current leader’s populist policies and Galvez, a former senator and tech entrepreneur who has pledged to escalate the fight against the drug cartels.

Both major presidential candidates are women, while a third from a smaller party trailed far behind.

Sheinbaum was widely expected to win the vote and become president.

She ran for the ruling Morena party and promised to continue all of incumbent President Lopez Obrador’s policies, including a universal pension for the elderly and a programme paying youths to undertake apprenticeships.

Galvez, who has indigenous roots, ran with a coalition of major opposition parties.

She left the Senate last year to focus her criticism of Obrador’s decision to avoid confronting the drug cartels through his “hugs not bullets” policy and pledged to go after criminals more aggressively.

‘BLOODIEST ELECTION IN MODERN HISTORY’

Mexico’s election became its bloodiest in modern history after the number of assassinated candidates reached 37 before Sunday’s vote.

The number of candidates assassinated in the 2024 election reached 37 – one more than during the 2021 midterm election – after a candidate running for local office in Puebla state was murdered at a political rally on Friday, according to data from security consultancy firm Integralia.

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The consultancy has also recorded 828 non-lethal attacks on candidates during the election season, up from 749 since Monday.

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