Polling stations are closed in Mexico for an election that will almost certainly elect the country’s first female president.
Both frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum and her main rival Xóchitl Gálvez are far ahead in the polls of the only male candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez.
Voters will also elect all members of the Mexican Congress and governors in eight states, as well as the head of Mexico City’s government.
The campaign has been overshadowed by violent attacks, which the government says have resulted in the deaths of more than 20 local candidates across Mexico, although private surveys put the total at 37.
Two people were killed in two attacks on polling stations in Puebla state on Sunday, officials said.
Ms. Sheinbaum, a 61-year-old scientist who served as mayor of Mexico City from 2018 to 2023, has the support of the outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Mr López Obrador, who has been in power since 2018, cannot run for the top office again because Mexico’s constitution limits presidents to one six-year term.
The popular leader – recent polls suggested he had an approval rating of almost 60% – has instead thrown his support behind Ms Sheinbaum, who is part of his Morena party.
While many of the promises President López Obrador made upon taking office have remained unfulfilled, his efforts to reduce poverty and help older Mexicans have been popular among beneficiaries of these social programs.
The president’s support may have significantly expanded Ms. Sheinbaum’s voter base, but it has also raised questions about how independent she is from the sometimes overwhelming leader.
Ms. Sheinbaum has emphasized that she is very much her own woman, while pledging to build on what she sees as Mr. López Obrador’s many achievements.
Their party, Morena, boasts of how millions of Mexicans have been lifted out of poverty in the past six years.
Morena says the number of people living in poverty is decreasing thanks to her policies, such as more than doubling the minimum wage.
But economists have pointed out that other factors are also at play, such as an increase in remittances from Mexicans living abroad to their friends and family back home.
In the election, Ms. Sheinbaum will face senator and businesswoman Xóchitl Gálvez.
Ms Gálvez, 61, was elected by a broad coalition of parties that share a desire to end the rule of the Morena party.
She and the coalition Power and Heart for Mexico, for which she is running, have been critical of the increase in violence that the country has experienced in the run-up to the elections.
At her closing rally, she told Mexicans that if they voted for her, they would have “the bravest president, a president who tackles crime.”
And while she has repeatedly mocked the strategy Mr. López Obrador laid out early in his presidency, when he promised “hugs, not bullets” in the fight against crime, Ms. Gálvez has provided few details about how on which it would fight the powerful criminal groups. responsible for much of the violence plaguing the country.
She has said she would offer police better pay and invest more in security in general.
But what has arguably made her more popular with voters critical of the outgoing president is her pledge to strengthen institutions that she says Mr. López Obrador tried to weaken, such as the Constitutional Court and the National Electoral Institute.
Ms Gálvez has accused Mr López Obrador of being authoritarian and undermining Mexico’s democratic institutions, calling his government “arrogant and overbearing”.
Polls close at 1am BST (6pm local time) and the winning candidate will take office at the end of September.
