MEXICO CITY, June 2, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Mexican voters are expected to make
history Sunday by electing their first woman president, a milestone in the
crime-plagued country where gender-based violence and discrimination have
long been rampant.

Ruling party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum, a former Mexico City mayor and a
scientist by training, had a 17 percentage point lead over her main
opposition rival Xochitl Galvez on the eve of the vote.

The only man running, centrist Jorge Alvarez Maynez, was trailing far behind
as a particularly violent campaign season marked by a string of candidate
murders drew to an end.

It means that, barring a huge surprise, a woman is almost certain to break
the highest political glass ceiling in Mexico, where around 10 women or girls
are murdered every day.

That prospect motivates other women to succeed and to think "yes you can,"
said Blanca Sosa, a 31-year-old store worker in Mexico City.

She expects Sheinbaum to continue the "good things" done by outgoing
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, such as pensions for the elderly and
an increased minimum wage.

Ricardo Sanchez, however, said he planned to vote for Galvez because of her
"business vision."

Lopez Obrador's "policy of putting the poor first is to ruin us all so that
we're poor and then he gives to us," the 55-year-old businessman said in the
northern city of Monterrey.

Sheinbaum, 61, owes much of her popularity to Lopez Obrador, a fellow leftist
and mentor who has an approval rating of more than 60 percent but is only
allowed to serve one term.

- Blood-soaked campaign -

Nearly 100 million people are registered to vote in the world's most populous
Spanish-speaking country, home to 129 million people and several time zones.

Voting will begin at 08:00 am (1300 GMT) in the southeastern state of
Quintana Roo and some areas near the US border, followed later by other
regions.

Thousands of troops will be deployed to protect voters from ultra-violent
drug cartels that have gone to extreme lengths to ensure their preferred
candidates win.

More than two dozen aspiring local politicians have been murdered during the
election process, according to official figures, in a nation where politics,
crime and corruption are closely entangled.

In a sign of the difficulties of staging elections in cartel hotspots, voting
was suspended in two southern municipalities because of violence, local
authorities said Saturday.

"The fight against organized crime will be the biggest challenge for the next
president," said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a professor at George Mason
University, in the United States.

Security was the "weakest point" of Lopez Obrador's administration, she told
AFP.

Sheinbaum has pledged to continue the outgoing president's controversial
"hugs not bullets" strategy of tackling crime at its roots.

Galvez has vowed a tougher approach to cartel-related violence, declaring
"hugs for criminals are over."

More than 450,000 people have been murdered and tens of thousands have gone
missing since the government deployed the army to fight drug trafficking in
2006.

The next president will also have to manage delicate relations with the
neighboring United States, in particular the vexed issues of cross-border
drug smuggling and migration.

- 'Not alone' -

Addressing a cheering crowd of thousands at her closing campaign rally,
Sheinbaum said Mexico was going to "make history" this weekend.

"I say to the young women, to all the women of Mexico -- colleagues, friends,
sisters, daughters, mothers and grandmothers -- you are not alone," she said.

The ruling party candidate had the backing of 53 percent of voters as
campaigning drew to a close, according to a poll average compiled by research
firm Oraculus.

Galvez, an outspoken senator and businesswoman with Indigenous roots, was
second with 36 percent. Maynez, 38, had just 11 percent.

Galvez, 61, often evokes her childhood story of growing up in a poor, rural
town in central Mexico where she says she sold candy to help her family.

"While you danced ballet at the age of 10, I had to work," she told
Sheinbaum, a former student activist who was born in the capital to a family
of Jewish immigrants.

While millions of Mexicans have escaped poverty in recent years, more than a
third still live below the poverty line in Latin America's second-biggest
economy.

As well as voting for a new president, Mexicans will choose members of
Congress, several state governors and myriad local officials.

In total, more than 20,000 positions are being contested.