Morena in the shadow of AMLO
AMLO’s rise to power was a rollercoaster ride, since his election as Mexico City’s governor in the year 2000, with a slight advantage over the second place, AMLO started to become a major political power in the country. Followed by two consecutive losses in the presidential elections of 2006 and 2012, to then achieving more than half of the votes in the 2018 presidential election. After that, Morena and AMLO reigned over the public opinion with over 50 percent approval rate.The shadow that AMLO casts may be enough to elect the new president, in fact, around 61 percent of Mexicans thought about voting for Morena even before knowing who the candidate was. During late November 2023, Claudia Sheinbaum was registered as the pre-candidate for the party. Sheinbaum was AMLO’s Secretary of Environment when he was Mexico City's governor, after that in 2018 she was herself governor of Mexico City. Sheinbaum's approval rate has not been as high as AMLO’s, nonetheless, during mid-2023, a survey found that half of Mexicans will be inclined to vote for her as the new presidential candidate in 2024, making her the main person to beat in the upcoming elections.
It “Goes for Mexico” from enemies to lovers
As a quest from a fairy tale, three entirely different political parties (and previous sworn enemies) decided to unite forces against a new titanic common enemy. In the coalition "Va por Mexico" (Goes for Mexico, VxM) converge parties with right-wing, socio-democratic, and Christian-democratic ideologies. During the Federal Elections of 2000, "Partido Acción Nacional" (PAN) took power for the first time, after 71 years of "Partido Revolucionario Institucional" (PRI) governments. As a new dominant political power, PAN fought against PRI and "Partido Revolución Democrática" (PRD) and won again in 2006. The tensions were palpable, between President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and AMLO, which during that time represented PRD. Again in 2012, PRI, PAN, and PRD were opponents during the elections and PRI succeeded their return to power with Enrique Peña Nieto.The romance started until 2018, the Federal Elections of that year saw the first union between parties, with PRD and PAN forming a new alliance and still coming in second place. Afterward, with the rise to power of AMLO, no party had any chance to challenge their position. In late 2020, the three parties came together to form VxM before the legislative elections of 2021, and still not getting the majority of congress. The previous history and so radically different positions are some of the reasons the coalition appears not so interesting for most voters.
Now, one of the main problems of the opposition was to elect a candidate that represents everyone on the spectrum. Among the many possible candidates, Xóchitl Gálvez had the upper hand in the opposition opinion polls and was elected the opposition candidate after Beatriz Paredes left her candidacy. Gálvez was a senator representing PAN after being the Mayor of Miguel Hidalgo (a municipality with over 400,000 inhabitants in Mexico City). This represents a breakthrough in Mexican politics, not only with the first time a female candidate with a serious shot at winning the presidential elections, but the first time the two main candidates are women.
Mexico’s main problems
One of the main concerns of the Mexican population is the growing level of insecurity. The country constantly makes headlines related to organized crime, violence, and drug cartels, making it the third most insecure country in Latin America, only behind Colombia and Venezuela. In fact, violence is one of the main deterrents of economic development and costs the country around 4.95 trillion Mexican pesos per year.In a second category of concerns, economic problems such as unemployment, economic crises, and poverty are also relevant for voters. Mexico was one of the most affected countries in the region during the COVID-19, due to the fall of tourism revenue and the general restrictions in a country on “non-essential” economic activities. With that, the share of people living under the poverty line increased in 2020, the job market also suffered tremendously with people that stopped receiving their income partially or that completely lost all sources of income.
