Andrés Manuel López Obrador won the 2018 presidential race to become the 67th president of Mexico and six years later, Mexico is ready to elect either the 68th president this Sunday, June 2
by Xochitl TC
In Mexico, three possible scenarios are outlined after Sunday, June 2, the day on which 98.9 million citizens will go to the polls to cast their vote and elect a total of 20,708 positions at the federal, state and municipal level; The president of the republic being the most relevant, since everything indicates that Mexico will have its first female president in history.
The greatest election in history
There are 629 federal positions and 20,079 state positions, which will be voted on next Sunday in Mexico and, below, we present what the panorama is prior to the largest election in the neighboring country, where for the first time two women and a man They face occupying the presidential seat.
Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo
She graduated with a degree in Physics from the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), she has a Master’s degree in Energy Engineering and also a Doctorate in Energy Engineering from the same university. Since her beginnings as a politician in Mexico, she has held various positions in the country’s capital as head of delegation (county) and was a key player in the 2018 elections, serving as AMLO’s campaign spokesperson, in his race for the presidency.
Among the proposals of the standard-bearer of the Let’s Keep Making History coalition, made up of the MORENA, PVEM and PT parties, stand out scholarships for students from basic to university level, free access to the IMSS-Bienestar health system, strengthening of the National Guard to surveillance and security tasks, substantive equality in public positions for women and attention to gender violence and violence against women through the SOS Women Program.
Another of her campaign promises is the increase in the minimum wage, especially for personnel in the militia, the health system and the teaching system. In addition, she will support the current government’s proposal on the Welfare Pension Fund. Said public trust will take 40 billion pesos from unclaimed accounts by older adults holders of AFORES that are considered inactive, with the objective of creating a pension fund, whose trustee will be the Bank of Mexico.
Regarding environmental and mobility matters, she presents the proposal for the transition to clean energy, in addition to building renewable energy generators, without leaving aside the work carried out by PEMEX and CFE, as she expressed that she seeks to strengthen them as public companies. Likewise, she will continue the projects started with AMLO, such as the Maya Train, the Interoceanic Train, the Felipe Ángeles Airport (AIFA) and the Dos Bocas Refinery.
Xóchitl Gálvez Ruíz
She is a computer engineer graduated from the highest educational institution in Mexico, UNAM, and in her political career she has served as senator, head of delegation (county), secretary of dependency of the federal government during the government of Vicente Fox, being at the head of the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples.
She is a candidate for the Strength and Heart Coalition for Mexico (PRI-PAN-PRD), she seeks to strengthen the sports infrastructure in Mexico, to provide better resources to the country’s sports talent. The security plan is, without a doubt, the most solid, since she has proposed a total fight against organized crime to completely put an end to President AMLO’s “hugs, not bullets” policy.
She proposes creating full-time public schools where students have artistic, sports and cultural activities, and giving free Internet access to educational institutions.
Her environmental proposal is based on reactivating the fund for the protection and prevention of natural disasters, fully moving Mexico towards clean energy and reusing wastewater in urban areas. In that sense, she seeks to create more infrastructure spaces for pedestrian and bicycle mobility throughout the country.
Jorge Álvarez Máynez
He is running for the Citizen Movement party and has a degree in International Relations from the Western Institute of Technology and Higher Studies (ITESO), he also has a Master’s Degree in International Studies from the Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, and also a Master’s Degree in Constitutional Law and Human Rights from the Carbonell Center for Legal Studies.
The focus of his campaign has been to restore their right to happiness, providing environments where they have access to sports and the promotion of a healthy life. His political campaign has focused on attracting the vote of young people, who represent 27 percent of the voters, 26 million young people between 18 and 29 years old, who will be in charge of choosing on Sunday.
It should be noted that, despite Máynez’s attempts to obtain the youth vote, the electoral contest is in dispute between the candidates Claudia Sheinbaum and Xóchitl Gálvez. According to Demoscopía Digital, Sheinbaum has a voting intention of 52.6 percent while Gálvez Ruíz has 29.7 percent and Álvarez Máynez only 14.6 percent.
The Mexico that AMLO leaves
The management of President Andrés Manuel was based on the social policy of “For the good of all, the Poor first.” However, some studies reveal that the poor bore the brunt of this six-year term, since the increase in poverty occurred among the most vulnerable population. In that sense, the NGO Mexicans against corruption and against impunity indicates that in 2018 there were 8.7 million poor people in Mexico and by 2020 there was an increase of 2.1 million, in other words 10.8 million people were in the range of extreme poverty in Mexico just two years after AMLO began his term as president.
In addition to the increase in poverty rates, the perception of insecurity is worrying among citizens, because the increase in intentional homicides has been considerable, registering a 28.20 percent increase compared to the six-year term of Enrique Peña Nieto, a percentage that represents 176 thousand homicides so far in AMLO’s mandate.
Given the campaign promises that AMLO made six years ago, voters in Mexico are hours away from deciding a new course for the country or the continuity of the Fourth Transformation, a transformation that may be overshadowed because by the end of this “humanist” administration by AMLO there will be 50.4 million people who do not have access to health services.
