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full screen Claudia Sheinbaum is expected to become Mexico’s first female president. Photo: Marco Ugarte/AP/TT
Claudia Sheinbaum looks set to be elected Mexico’s first female president.
The biggest challenge will be confronting the drug cartels and the deadly violence that also marked the election.
Sheinbaum, who belongs to the incumbent government party, collects about 58 percent of the votes in a national polling station survey by the opinion institute Enkoll, reports AFP.
Main competitor Xochitl Galvez gets 29 percent in the same survey.
The only man running, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, gets 11 percent, according to Enkoll, who asked voters on their way out of polling stations how they voted.
Another four polling station surveys present similar results, writes the Reuters news agency.
Vote counting is ongoing and official preliminary figures are expected later in the day.
The fight against organized crime – and the violence and terror it brings – will be the biggest challenge for Mexico’s new president, as well as the many former leaders.
Sheinbaum has previously made it clear that she wants to continue along the lines of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who invested in social measures to address the root of the problem.
With her, she has merits as mayor of the capital Mexico City, where she successfully launched a “security strategy” that she promised to implement on a national level during the election campaign.
It focuses, among other things, on youth initiatives, a strengthened police force, as well as more effective cooperation between the judiciary and other authorities to prevent crime – rather than tougher military pinches.
The violence in Mexico here also characterized the election campaign. Over 25 politicians standing in regional and local elections have been killed.