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MEXICO CITY – Mexican voters flocked to polling stations Sunday morning for a presidential election that could bring to power a leftist who attacked traditional politicians and promised to eradicate corruption and defend the poor.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, 64, has by far his best chance. He dominated the elections this election season, overcoming a wave of anger over government corruption and record violence in the drug war.
President Trump stands in the background of this vote. It was not a problem secondary to the election – since all candidates opposed his policies and his anti-Mexican rhetoric – but the new Mexican president will have to handle unusually strained cross-border relations.
If elected, Lopez Obrador, former mayor of Mexico City, would be Mexico's first left-wing leader since the country's democratic transition began three decades ago; a choice that would represent a categorical rejection of traditional political parties and politicians that Lopez Obrador regularly calls the "mafia of power".
On his way are Ricardo Anaya, a 39-year-old ambitious ex-president from the right. -National Action Party (PAN); and a Yale-trained Yale economist, Jose Antonio Meade, representing the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Opponents of Lopez Obrador have sought to portray him as a dangerous and radical populist who will bring Mexico back to economic models of state subsidies and intervention, while causing more tension with the president. The Trump administration on the other side of the border.
But the unpopularity of President Enrique Peña Nieto and the PRI – who ruled Mexico for most of the last century – has hindered this party's candidates and other traditional political parties. Meade is a respected technocrat who has held several ministerial positions but dropped to third place in many polls.
The day of the election began with the head of the Mexican electoral agency, Lorenzo Cordova, stressing the importance of democracy. Play according to the rules. Cordova called the vote "the most important tool that citizens have in a democracy to control power."
"Never in a plural, diverse and unequal society – like ours – the citizens are really equal"
Mexico has a long history of electoral fraud In the last two elections, Lopez Obrador alleged a fraud in his In 2006, he and his supporters occupied a main boulevard in Mexico City for weeks and he crowned the real president. Analysts worry that a result closer than expected, or a disruption by one of the other candidates, could lead to further allegations of fraud or even unrest and violence.Election critics insist that it will be more combative towards the United States. United that current President Peña Nieto, and that the US-Mexico conflict could escalate drastically if he chooses to fight with Trump.Lopez Obrador and his team have insisted that they want to preserve the Agreement of North American free trade and maintain good relations with the Trump administration.
Trump regularly attacked Mexico for not doing enough to prevent drugs, criminals and immigrant states. He also began a renegotiation of NAFTA, claiming that Mexico stole American jobs and intends to build a border wall.
Lopez Obrador, a famous early bird, arrived around 7.30am in the south of Mexico City. center in the interior of an office of the National Water Commission of Mexico. He voted a few minutes before 9:00, and thumbs up to the crowd.
"It's a historic day," said Lopez Obrador. "The Mexican people will decide freely"
"We represent the possibility of a real change, a transformation," he added.
Anaya and Meade voted later in the morning.
The largest in the history of Mexico, with voters choosing over 3,200 positions at all levels of government. Among them, 628 members of the National Congress, who will be able to be reelected for the first time in nearly a century; 9 governors of state; and the mayors of more than 1500 cities, including Mexico City.
Lopez Obrador's leftist party, the National Regeneration Movement, or Morena, even hopes to get a majority at Congress, which would be a remarkable increase for a party he founded.
The election campaign was brutally brutal, with some 130 candidates and campaign personnel murdered across the country. The candidates called on Sunday for a calm and peaceful vote.
By the time the booths were to open at Ecatepec – a working town north of the Mexican capital – more than a hundred people were at the door of a local cultural center. While election officials were waiting for the citizens assigned to the polls, the crowd began to whistle to demand the opening of doors
"If they do not pay attention to us now, do you think that?" they will pay attention to the votes? ", shouted Miguel Angel Serrano, 67, tops the list
The Mexican state has traditionally been a stronghold of the PRI, and it is also the only one in the world. State of origin of current president, Enrique Peña Nieto.These areas are considered barometers of changing political mood in Mexico, and its poverty and widespread violence are blatant examples of the most pressing issues of voting this year
"The PRI has won here for many years, but this year Luis Valdepeña Bastida, 51 years old, waiting to vote,
Valdepeña voted for Lopez Obrador in the last two elections and planned to make same Sunday. He was tired of daily killings, including the high rate of femicide, and the poor education system.
"Voting is the only tool we have to make sure this corrupt system changes," he said. "People are fed up."
Others found the promises of Lopez Obrador's change unrealistic.
Keila Gonzalez Garcia, 33, who works at a company producing personal hygiene products, said that she was preparing to vote for Anaya "I vote for it to be". assures that peje does not win, "she said, using the nickname López Obrador. "He has an idea of the world tinged with pink, but I do not think it's possible … Where will he get all the money for his plans?"
Averbuch reported from Ecatepec.
Read more
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Here's what you need to know about the presidential election in Mexico
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