Date: 2 June 2024
Type: Presidential, federal legislative, gubernatorial, state legislative, and municipal.
Main presidential contenders: Claudia Sheinbaum of the ruling Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena), Xóchitl Gálvez of opposition coalition Fuerza y Corazón por México (comprising the Partido Revolucionario Institucional [PRI], Partido Acción Nacional [PAN], and Partido de la Revolución Democrática [PRD]), and Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the leftist opposition Movimiento Ciudadano (MC).
Mexico is embarking on its biggest-ever electoral year in 2024. At the federal level, a new president and both chambers of congress (500 deputies and 128 senators) will be elected. Concurrently, all the country’s 32 states will hold elections for local seats including eight governorships and the head of Mexico City (CDMX) government, state legislators, and municipal positions. Together, 20,263 posts will be up for grabs – over five times the 3,416 positions elected in 2018’s elections. In another first, Mexicans will likely elect their first-ever female president, given the two frontrunners are women.
The elections are also the first real indicator of how Morena may live on beyond its founder, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is constitutionally limited to a single six-year term. The vote will mark the tenth anniversary since Morena was registered as a political party. Its rise since then has been spectacular, due in large part to the enduring popularity of López Obrador, who swept the party to power with a landslide victory in 2018. The party now holds a simple majority in both chambers of congress with the help of allied parties, 21 state governorships (with two more in allied hands), and a majority of seats in 21 state congresses. Meanwhile, López Obrador’s approval rating has hovered around 60% for almost all his presidency.
Although López Obrador will not appear on the ballot box, his influence and presence will be felt throughout the electoral period – and beyond. He is pushing to finish his flagship infrastructure projects such as the Tren Maya tourist railway and Dos Bocas oil refinery before the end of his term as tangible testament of his presidency. He also intends to present constitutional reforms in relation to the judiciary, public security, minimum wage, and pensions, among other things. Such reforms need approval from a two-thirds majority in both chambers of congress to pass. Obtaining such a majority - something which Morena is yet to achieve – will be another major aim of this electoral period.
The favourite
Morena’s presidential candidate is former CDMX mayor Claudia Sheinbaum (2018-2023). Sheinbaum’s clear campaign as a continuity candidate for the ever-popular López Obrador makes the race hers to lose, with most early polls putting her far ahead of the competition. Sheinbaum has been by López Obrador’s side since the start of her political career, cutting her teeth as CDMX environment minister when he was mayor of the city (2000-2006) and later as spokesperson for his failed 2006 presidential campaign, when he ran for the PRD. When López Obrador split from the PRD and founded Morena, Sheinbaum joined him.
A survey published by national daily El Financiero on 4 January showed Sheinbaum had increased her lead over Gálvez. The poll showed that 52% of respondents would vote for Sheinbaum, against 30% for Gálvez. This gave Sheinbaum a 22-point lead, up from a 19-point lead in the previous (November) survey published by the newspaper.
Nevertheless, there are indications that Sheinbaum will not be a carbon copy of López Obrador. For one thing, she has already shown herself to be far less socially conservative, supporting legislation to improve reproductive rights and attending LGBTQI+ rallies while mayor of CDMX. She has also made it clear that furthering women’s rights and tackling gender violence will be high on her agenda if elected.
Another significant difference is in Sheinbaum’s environmental credentials. A climate scientist by training – she has a PhD in energy engineering from Mexico’s national university (Unam) - as CDMX mayor Sheinbaum promoted solar power and cycle and public transport infrastructure. She has also stressed the importance of developing renewable energy generation. This suggests that, if elected, Sheinbaum is likely to tap into Mexico’s potential for generating electricity using solar and wind power, rather than continuing López Obrador’s reliance on fossil fuels, a key tenet of his nationalist energy policies.
However, proximity to López Obrador will only take Sheinbaum so far. López Obrador’s popularity is predicated on a largely personalistic style of politics and his ability to control the national narrative. Through his daily morning press conferences, he has successfully portrayed himself as a man of the people, blaming any faults of his government on ‘neoliberal’ governments of the past. Sheinbaum lacks López Obrador’s populist charisma and may well struggle to dominate the narrative to such an extent.
The contender
Strangely, the opposition coalition’s candidate, Gálvez, is in many ways more similar to López Obrador in style and temperament than Sheinbaum. Like López Obrador, Gálvez understands the importance of controlling the narrative. She launched her presidential candidacy amid a wave of media frenzy following a stunt in which she obtained a judge’s order to allow her to respond in person to criticisms from López Obrador. When she arrived at the national palace to do so, she was denied entry. Gálvez capitalised on this to posit herself as the perfect outsider candidate and antidote to López Obrador.
Gálvez is also similar in her humble origin story. Of indigenous Hñähñu (Otomi) descent, Gálvez grew up in a small town in Hidalgo state and famously sold sweets on the street as a child to help make ends meet. She later gained a degree in computer science and founded two tech firms before entering politics as head of the national institute for indigenous people under Vicente Fox (2000-2006).
Like Fox, Gálvez is affiliated with the right-wing opposition Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), for which she served as a federal senator from 2018-2023. However, she has never officially joined a political party. This is a strength and a weakness. It allows Gálvez to distance herself from the politics of the past and present herself as a vote for change. However, it also leaves her without a unified political identity, with much of her campaign focusing on criticising the current government rather than presenting new ideas. Gálvez must ensure the wave of momentum generated early in her candidacy does not peter out with over four months left in the race.
A third option
On 12 November, Samuel García, the young governor (36) of Mexico’s northern state of Nuevo León, announced his intention to run for the presidency for the left-of-centre Movimiento Ciudadano (MC) opposition party.
García presented himself as the candidate for the future and appeared to gain traction, particularly among younger voters. However, chaos descended in Nuevo León with a dispute over who would serve as interim governor while he campaigned. With the threat of MC losing the governorship, García withdrew from the race and returned to his role as governor.
On 9 January, the MC named Jorge Álvarez Máynez, its leader in the lower chamber, as its presidential candidate. At 38 years old, Álvarez Máynez is also much younger than the competition. This, and his closeness to García, will be used to try and attract the vote of young people disillusioned with the status quo.
The local races
Significant contests will also play out at state level, as new governors are set to be elected in Chiapas, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Morelos, Puebla, Tabasco, Veracruz, and Yucatán, as well as the all-important head of CDMX government. With both Sheinbaum and López Obrador having previously served as CDMX mayor, the seat is of large symbolic importance to Morena, as well as carrying heft in terms of size of budget, electorate, and potential campaigning power.
Control of the capital is also key given CDMX was one of the few areas where Morena performed badly in the 2021 mid-terms, losing control of four of the 11 boroughs it won in 2018 while the opposition took control of nine. This split the capital in two with Morena controlling the poorer eastern half and the opposition the wealthier western half of the city.
Morena’s candidate in CDMX is Clara Brugada, the municipal leader for Iztapalapa, a collection of low-income neighbourhoods on the eastern side of the city. Due to gender balance rules, Morena passed over the most popular candidate for CDMX in internal party polling, former police chief Omar García Harfuch, who saw much success serving as the city’s public security minister under Sheinbaum. The opposition is fielding PAN’s Santiago Taboada, the current mayor of CDMX’s Benito Juárez neighbourhood. Chosen without internal surveys, the selection prompted the PRI’s Adrián Rubalcava, who was also vying for candidacy in the capital, to renounce his party membership, adding to an ever-growing list of people to have abandoned the PRI.
Other key races are in Yucatán, Guanajuato, and Jalisco, where Morena is looking to unseat opposition parties. The PAN currently governs in the first two states whereas Jalisco is governed by the independent Enrique Alfaro, who won the governorship for the MC but left the party in August amid differences with national leader Dante Delgado. Morena will also look to retain governorships in Chiapas, Morelos, Puebla, Tabasco, and Veracruz. If Morena achieves “the complete kayak” - López Obrador’s variation on the ‘carro completo’ (literally ‘complete car’, a phrase used to describe the PRI’s sweeping victories in the past at all levels of government) - it would take its governorship tally to 26, meaning over 80% of states would be in the hands of Morena and its allies.
A loaded legacy
The fact that a large proportion of Mexicans currently receive some form of cash handout from the government has contributed in no small part to López Obrador’s popularity. Any successor will likely struggle to keep this up as inflated spending plans for the year look to saddle them with the highest fiscal deficit in decades.
Eduardo Verástegui
The candidacy of far-right Mexican actor Eduardo Verástegui was over before it started. Verástegui failed to collect the signatures needed to run as an independent in the presidential race, which must equate to 1% of the electoral roll (some 960,000 signatures) from supporters in 17 of Mexico’s 32 states. Verástegui, who has aligned himself with right-wing figures including former US president Donald Trump (2017-2021) and former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023), requested an extension for the period in which to collect the signatures. This was denied.
Risks
Political violence remains a big risk ahead of Mexico’s mammoth electoral year. According to local political risk consulting firm, Etellekt, 102 politicians including 36 candidates were killed in the run-up to the mid-term elections in June 2021. Given that 2024’s elections are significantly larger, with many more local contests, where candidates are most vulnerable, there is reason to believe this year’s electoral period will be even deadlier. Indeed, three opposition candidates competing for local seats were killed from 4-5 January in an indication of the violence that may lie ahead.
Another risk concerns the democratic process itself. Although the actual threat to a peaceful transfer of power is relatively low, López Obrador has consistently worked to undermine the country’s main electoral bodies – the national electoral institute (INE) and federal electoral tribunal (TEPJF) – through budget cuts, proposed reforms, and verbal attacks. This has raised concerns of democratic backsliding, with the Economist Intelligence Unit downgrading Mexico from a “flawed democracy” to a “hybrid regime” under López Obrador.
A related risk is the flaunting of electoral rules, which López Obrador and other prominent Morena figures have repeatedly done. Violations include campaigning outside of designated periods, spreading government propaganda during the electoral period, and exceeding campaign donation limits. Such rules are designed to ensure a balanced contest. Given the wealth of public resources and influence that López Obrador and Morena have at their fingertips, such rule breaking could tip the balance ever more in their favour.
