Left-wing government candidate Claudia Sheinbaum is poised to become Mexico’s first female president in a historic election overshadowed by violence, preliminary results show.
Frontrunner Sheinbaum, a former mayor of Mexico City, won between 58.3 and 60.7% of the vote, well ahead of her main challenger Xochitl GalvezThe election authority of the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world said this on Sunday evening.
Gálvez came second with 26.6 to 28.6%, the authority said after ballots from some 5,600 polling stations were counted.
The announcement of the preliminary results had been postponed several times, without any explanation given by the authority.
“They lie as always,” Gálvez, who was backed by a broad alliance of Mexico’s three main opposition parties, wrote on X before the first results were announced.
The 61-year-old Sheinbaum of the ruling Morena party will take office on October 1.
She is a trained scientist and has been considered for years an ally of the incumbent left-wing populist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is no longer allowed to run after six years as president.
Gálvez, a businesswoman, computer engineer and former senator, was supported by the broad centrist opposition alliance Strength and Heart for Mexico, formed by the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Party of the Democratic Revolution. PRD).
A third candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez from a smaller party, was deemed to have no chance.
A simple majority is sufficient to win the elections.
In addition to the presidency, Mexicans voted to fill all seats in the House of Representatives, the Senate and regional and municipal posts, making it an election day of historic proportions.
In total, more than 20,000 offices were up for grabs, including governorships in eight of the 31 states and in the capital district.
Nearly 100 million citizens had the right to vote.
The campaign period was overshadowed by violence. At least 34 candidates have died since the application phase started in September, according to data from consultancy Integralia. Officials say criminal groups vying for influence in some regions are behind many of these attacks.
At least three people were killed in violent incidents at separate polling stations in the states of Puebla, Mexico and the outskirts of Monterrey on election day, according to media reports.
In the central state of Puebla, a polling station in the municipality of Tlapanalá failed to open after ballots were stolen, the electoral authority said.
In the city of Coyomeapan, elections had to be interrupted due to violence.
In the cities of Chicomuselo and Pantelhó in the southern state of Chiapas, elections were completely suspended due to the violence of the drug cartels in the region.
