PBS News Hour | Mexico heading for historic elections after violent campaign | Season 2024

GEOFF BENNETT: As many as 100 million Mexicans will go to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president.

And it is already guaranteed historic.

Both party leaders are women.

And the country has never had a female leader in its 200-year history.

The key issues in Mexico’s biggest-ever election are security, migration and the economy.

But, as Nick Schifrin reports, the leading candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum, represents several firsts.

And a warning: this story contains images and accounts of violence.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Never before has Mexico had a woman, the granddaughter of Jewish immigrants, and a Nobel Prize-winning climate scientist as president.

But Claudia Sheinbaum calls herself a disciplined defender of Mexico’s future.

CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM, Mexican presidential candidate (through translator): We will have an honest government without corruption or impunity.

We will not submit to any economic or foreign power, no matter how powerful it may be.

NICK SCHIFRIN: A distant second is former Senator Xochitl Galvez, who leads the country’s broad opposition coalition.

She wonders whether Sheinbaum is merely the protégé or will be the puppet of current President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, better known as AMLO.

CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM (through translator): The transformation initiated by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is not going backwards.

LILA ABED, The Wilson Center: The big question mark surrounding a possible Sheinbaum administration is what role, if any, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will play and whether she will really make her own mark.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Lila Abed is acting director of the Mexican Institute at The Wilson Center.

LILA ABED: She cannot completely distance herself from the political platform, from the government plan that brought AMLO to power and which has achieved high approval ratings.

And that’s what she runs on.

She is not necessarily running on a new political platform.

She builds on what AMLO has achieved.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But the most important issue for voters may be what Lopez Obrador failed to achieve: security.

A Mexican security firm says more than 700 people involved in the elections have been threatened, kidnapped or killed; Between September and May, 34 candidates were murdered, much of the violence unleashed by cartels fighting for lucrative smuggling routes in the most violent states, Guerrero, Puebla and Chiapas.

In Chiapas, candidates have been running for office and from gangs.

Earlier this year, Diego Perez, the mayoral candidate of San Juan Cancuc, was found dead, dumped in a ditch with signs of torture.

And this month, 28-year-old Lucero Lopez, a mayoral candidate in La Concordia, was shot dead during a campaign rally.

LINDA HIGUERA, Green Party (through translator): It’s difficult.

We must be able to walk through our streets safely and freely.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Linda Higuera wants to lead the district council in San Cristobal.

She is a member of the Green Party and aligns herself with President Lopez Obrador.

Earlier this month, attackers attacked her campaign car after she attended an LGBTQ event.

LINDA HIGUERA (through translator): They shouted homophobic words, hateful words, intimidating messages at me and said, “You’re not going to pass.

You are a woman.”

As a woman you feel unprotected.

You are in an environment where you feel persecuted.

They destroy your van and there are no consequences.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In a violent state, the ballots are guarded by soldiers.

But in some areas, armed groups prevented election workers from setting up polling stations.

And in the indigenous town of Pantelo (ph), 500 people fled for fear of violence and the election won’t even take place.

Claudia Rodriguez is the Chiapas Executive Director of the National Electoral Institute.

CLAUDIA RODRIGUEZ, National Electoral Institute (through translator): It’s obviously because of the fear they have.

Some political actors have told us that they do not want elections to take place.

It is difficult, and we as an institution support peaceful elections, but we cannot forcibly enter a community to elect a representative.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The Green Party of Chiapas The Green Party of Chiapas and Linda Higuera believe Claudia Sheinbaum can bring security.

LINDA HIGUERA (through translator): I’m sure she will be a great ally for all the women who need that support, that protection, so that we are no longer intimidated.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But opposition candidate Xochitl Galvez calls Lopez Obrador’s security policy, known as hugs instead of bullets, a failure.

XOCHITL GALVEZ, Mexican Opposition Presidential Candidate (through translator): Is security better today than ever?

Of course not; 186,000 people were murdered and 50,000 disappeared.

That is the result of a security strategy in which the hugs have been for the criminals and the bullets for the citizens.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Sheinbaum’s new solutions are a national intelligence agency and investments in young Mexicans vulnerable to organized crime.

LILA ABED: At the same time, she wants to continue consolidating the National Guard and making sure it falls under the Department of Defense.

And so she would essentially continue what many have called the militarization of previous civilian forces in Mexico.

And there is a lot of concern because the military is not necessarily trained in protecting human rights and ensuring that when they are faced with these new responsibilities, they carry them out in a very responsible and legal manner.

NICK SCHIFRIN: The Mexican government has also used the military to block migrants’ travel north by lowering border crossings for migrants, working with the Biden administration.

But it is not clear whether this is sustainable, and the elections have not produced alternative solutions.

LILA ABED: And Claudia Sheinbaum, at least she has said she’s going to ask the next U.S. president for money to support the large number of migrants now on Mexican soil.

But more than that, there really is no comprehensive, detailed strategy or plan on behalf of either candidate on how they will deal with migration.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And so the woman whose family escaped Nazi persecution will inherit great challenges across the country, but the glass ceiling won’t be one of them.

For the “PBS NewsHour,” I’m Nick Schifrin.