Mexico Elections - 2024

On June 2, millions of Mexicans are set to make history by voting in their first-ever female president with the two leading candidates both being women; Dr Claudia Sheinbaum from the leftist Morena party, and her right-wing rival, Xóchitl Gálvez. Mexico will go to the polls on 02 June 2024 to elect a successor to popular incumbent Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), who is barred by the constitution from serving a second six-year term. Mexico is a multiparty federal republic with an elected president and bicameral legislature. Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the MORENA party won the presidential election in generally free and fair multiparty elections in 2018. In the June 2021 midterm elections, citizens voted for all members of the Chamber of Deputies, 15 governors, state legislators, and mayors across the country. The elections were generally free and fair.

Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: unlawful or arbitrary killings by police, military, and other governmental officials; forced disappearance by government agents; torture or cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment by security forces; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention; restrictions on free expression and media, including violence against journalists; serious acts of government corruption; insufficient investigation of and accountability for gender-based violence, including domestic or intimate partner violence; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex persons; and crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting persons with disabilities.

There were reports of numerous forced disappearances by criminal groups, sometimes with allegations of collusion with authorities. Investigations, prosecutions, and convictions of forced disappearance crimes were rare. Disappearances remained a persistent problem throughout the country, especially in areas with high levels of cartel- or gang-related violence.

According to the National Search Commission (CNB), which coordinates state and federal search efforts, as of December 2, there were 108,521 missing or disappeared persons in the country. An estimated 90 percent of disappearances occurred after January 1, 2006, according to search collectives and advocacy groups familiar with the database.

On 18 August 2022, Undersecretary Encinas released a report confirming that the 2014 disappearances of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College in Iguala, Guerrero, was a “state” crime. The report found various local, state, and federal officials – by commission or omission – were involved in carrying out or covering up crimes in conjunction with the atrocities. On August 19, the Office of the Attorney General arrested former Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam on charges of forced disappearances, negligence, and obstruction of justice and issued arrest warrants for 83 suspects. On January 15, authorities arrested suspect Mateo “N” for his alleged involvement in the disappearances of the 43 students as well as his participation in criminal group activities.

In March 2022 the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), appointed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), presented its third report on Ayotzinapa. The GIEI asserted the armed forces knew of the attack as it happened, failed to protect evidence at the alleged crime scene, and refused to provide crucial information during the investigations of the 43 students who disappeared.

In June 2022 the Interior Secretariat published a report entitled National Diagnostic of Sexual Torture Committed Against Incarcerated Women in Mexico, which revealed 79 percent of the women interviewed had experienced some form of torture while imprisoned. Of these, 44 percent were subjected to acts of sexual torture. According to the report, police investigators and other police personnel committed the majority of these crimes.

According to the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) 2021 National Diagnostic of Penitentiary Supervision study, 44 of 233 prisons had self-government structures in which inmates carried out staff functions. In March the CNDH National Prevention Mechanism for Torture (MNPT) visited 27 prisons and assessed self-government structures subjected inmates to extortion, attacks, and inhuman treatment. Criminal groups reportedly continued to oversee illicit activities from within penitentiary walls, and rival drug cartel members often fought in prison.

Independent media were active and expressed a wide variety of views without restriction but often self-censored due to fear of reprisals from government officials and transnational criminal organizations. Journalists could criticize the government and discuss matters of general interest with no restrictions. Politicians, including President López Obrador, publicly discredited and criticized such journalists to present them as biased, partisan, and corrupt.

Official discrediting of press workers worsened beginning in June 2021, when authorities introduced the regular inclusion of a “Who’s Who in Lies” section to the president’s morning press conference to expose journalists who allegedly reported fake news. On 01 February 2022, the special rapporteur for freedom of expression for the IACHR said President López Obrador should suspend this segment of his morning conference given the escalation of violence against journalists. In August 2022 the Committee to Protect Journalists reported 15 journalists had been killed since the beginning of the year, with 11 of the killings linked to the journalists’ work.

Criminal groups exercised grave influence over media outlets and reporters, threatening individuals who published critical views of criminal groups. Concerns persisted regarding criminal groups’ use of physical violence in retaliation for information posted online, which exposed journalists, bloggers, and social media users to the same level of violence faced by traditional journalists. For example, journalists in Nogales, Sonora, said they were aware of unspoken red lines in covering organized crime and that crossing lines, such as mentioning the name of an alleged assailant, could result in personal harm.

International observers considered the 2021 midterm elections (legislative, gubernatorial, and local) to be generally free and fair, with only minor reports of irregularities. Local commentators pointed to the electoral authorities’ quick and transparent publishing of results as increasing citizen trust in the electoral and democratic system. The midterm elections, the largest in the country’s history due to the record number of more than 20,000 offices up for election, had a 52 percent turnout, a record for a nonpresidential election. In June six states with a combined population of approximately 12 million held gubernatorial elections in a process observers considered to be generally free and fair, with the ruling coalition winning in four and the opposition in two.

On 10 April 2022, citizens participated in a presidential recall election, with voters deciding whether President López Obrador should remain in office or step down before the end of his six-year term. Turnout was low, with only 17 percent of registered voters participating, and therefore was not legally binding (40 percent turnout was required). Close to 92 percent of those who participated voted in favor of López Obrador remaining in office until the end of his term.

During the midterm electoral season (September 2020 to June 2021), assailants killed 36 candidates and 64 politicians. The rate of aggression against political figures during the election cycle was on par with the 2018 election, one of the most violent political periods in recent history. The states where the most political violence occurred were Veracruz, followed by Guerrero and Guanajuato. Municipal candidates and challengers seeking to oust incumbents were the most common victims of political violence, with victims spread across the political spectrum.

Maverick Mexican Senator Xochitl Galvez effectively secured the main opposition candidacy for the 2024 presidential election after picking up the endorsement of a key party, which dumped its own contender. Galvez’s success 31 August 2023 moved Mexico a step closer to the prospect of a first female president, with recent polls suggesting that President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s (AMLO) dominant governing party is leaning towards selecting a female candidate to succeed him.

Galvez is seen by many analysts as best placed to challenge AMLO’s left-wing National Regeneration Movement (MORENA). Her victory came after the head of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Mexico’s former rulers, said the PRI would back her instead of its own hopeful, Beatriz Paredes. “This is just beginning,” Galvez said on X, formerly Twitter, as the opposition released survey results showing her polling more support than her PRI rival. “Nobody will stop us.”

Still, the way the PRI abandoned Paredes took the shine off what had appeared to be an imminent win for Galvez endorsed by voters as the race for the opposition alliance’s presidential ticket was due to conclude with a ballot on Sunday. Surrounded by sombre-looking party colleagues, PRI chairman Alejandro Moreno told a news conference that because of the polling results, his party was now fully behind Galvez. Paredes, a senator and one-time leader of the PRI, was notably absent.

A spirited communicator with an irreverent sense of humour, Galvez represents the centre-right National Action Party (PAN), a longtime rival and now ally of the centrist PRI. The Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) had previously said it was backing Galvez. She is widely viewed as the contender who could do most to weaken the iron hold MORENA has on national politics, which has consigned the PRI, PAN and PRD to a string of heavy defeats. Expressing support for business even as Lopez Obrador has railed against corporate greed, Galvez, 60, boasts an appeal that can cut across class divides. Like the president, she also connects with poorer Mexicans better than many of her peers.

Renowned for her ebullience and adept at creating publicity, Galvez has crafted her pitch as one of triumph over adversity, describing how she became a successful entrepreneur after growing up in an impoverished family with indigenous roots. As a girl, she sold gelatin and tamales to help her family. She worked as a scribe in a local civil registry office as a teen. At 16, she moved by herself to Mexico City and worked as a phone operator until earning a scholarship that allowed her to study computer science. Then she started a technology company, that, as Lopez Obrador noted recently, has won government contracts.

MORENA was due to announce its candidate on 06 September 2023 after national polling. Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum had led recent voter surveys, feeding expectations that she could face off against Galvez. Mexico’s governing party named Sheinbaum as its candidate for the 2024 presidential elections, putting her in pole position to become the country’s first woman leader. Sheinbaum is a close ally of President Lopez Obrador and Morena controls 22 of Mexico’s 32 states, giving her a distinct advantage. Trained as an environmental scientist, Sheinbaum sits solidly on the left of the ideological spectrum and represents the continuation of AMLO’s social agenda. She has frequently echoed his condemnation of the neoliberal economic policies of earlier Mexican presidents, blaming them for the country’s gaping inequality and high levels of violence.

Mexico’s ruling Morena party candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum, kicked off her campaign for the presidency 03 March 2024 with a series of welfare proposals that build on the legacy of the popular incumbent, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Sheinbaum, who led in polls for the June election, proposed her own aid program for women and school kids among some 100 pledges at her campaign launch in Mexico City’s main square. Reforma newspaper published an electoral preference survey on 29 May 2024 showing that Claudia Sheinbaum, the presidential candidate for the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), has a 20 percentage point lead over her main rival, Xochitl Galvez. With less than 5 days until the elections, Sheinbaum has managed to capture 55 percent of voter preferences. Meanwhile, Galvez, the presidential candidate of the right-wing coalition Strength and Heart for Mexico, has garnered only 35 percent of the support. In last place is the candidate of the Citizens' Movement (MC), Jorge Alvarez, who has only 10 percent of electoral preferences. Its allies, the Labor Party (PT) and the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM), would receive 5 percent and 6 percent, respectively. Thus, the progressive alliance would secure 55 percent of the votes for the Legislative branch. On the other hand, within the Strength and Heart for Mexico coalition, the electoral preferences are distributed as follows: 21 percent for the right-wing National Action Party (PAN), 10 percent for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and 2 percent for the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Citizens' Movement, an organization that defines itself as a 'third way' between MORENA and the traditional right-wing opposition, would receive only 10 percent of the votes for legislators.

Claudia Sheinbaum was elected president of Mexico, breaking barriers as a woman and a Jew. After the vote, she said "This is the triumph of the Mexican people and the peaceful revolution of consciences. It is our people's clear recognition that the mandate is to continue and advance with the fourth transformation of public life in Mexico." Outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) highlighted the importance of the election of Claudia Sheinbaum as the first female president of Mexico. "Yesterday I already congratulated her. I am very happy because you can imagine what it means to hand over the presidency to a woman after 200 years of republican life in which only men governed Mexico since 1824," he said. "She is the candidate with the highest vote in the history of Mexico compared to all of us who have held the office of President. That is something historic," AMLO added. "She is a woman with convictions who was trained in university activism and in the fight for democracy in Mexico. She is a woman with a lot of experience in the art of government since she was head of government of Mexico City," he highlighted. "But above all, she is an honest woman, which is something very important," the outgoing Mexican President said. Sheinbaum’s election made Mexico by far the biggest country to have a Jewish head of state. Only Israel (9.5 million) and Ukraine (38 million) currently have Jewish leaders. Sheinbaum’s Jewish ties are centered mostly on her family story — her grandparents came to Mexico after fleeing persecution in Europe — and local Jews say she is not involved in Mexico’s Jewish community today. , Her election marked a departure in a country where the overwhelming majority of people identify as Catholic. She faced some antisemitism on the campaign trail when her detractors characterized her as not fully Mexican.