MEXICO CITY — Polls closed on Sunday in a national vote that will likely give Mexico its first female president, but the heat, violence and polarization continued almost right through election day.
People turned out to vote in the township of Cuitzeo, in the western state of Michoacán, despite the fact that a town council candidate was shot to death by two hit men on a motorcycle just hours before the election.
Residents voted under a heavy police guard — but later passed by the home of slain candidate Israel Delgado to light a candle for the well-known local politician at an improvised altar on his doorstep.
Nationwide, the voting was largely peaceful, but it appeared that even if the front-runner — former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum — wins, she is unlikely to enjoy the kind of unquestioning devotion that outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has enjoyed.
Both belong to the ruling Morena party.
Araceli Hernández, 49, a university professor in international studies in Mexico City, said she was voting for Morena. “Even though there are things we don’t like, like militarization, there has been progress.”
Hernández was referring to López Obrador’s policy of relying on the army and the quasi-military National Guard, rather than police, to fight crime. Though she was going to vote to continue the ruling party’s grip on national politics, she noted “we are going to continue to be critical” of some government policies.
Mexico City voter Yoselin Ramírez, 29, said she voted for Sheinbaum, but she split her vote for other posts because she didn’t want anyone holding a strong majority.
“I don’t want everything to be occupied by the same party, so there can be a little more equality,” she said without elaborating.
The main opposition candidate, Xóchitl Gálvez, a tech entrepreneur and former senator, tried to seize on Mexicans’ concerns about security and promised to take a more aggressive approach toward organized crime.
Nearly 100 million people are registered to vote in the race to replace López Obrador. Voters were also electing governors in nine of the country’s 32 states, and choosing candidates for both houses of Congress, thousands of mayorships and other local posts, in the biggest elections the nation has seen and ones that have been marked by violence.
The elections are widely seen as a referendum on López Obrador, a populist who has expanded social programs but largely failed to reduce cartel violence in Mexico. Both major presidential candidates are women, and either would be Mexico’s first female president. A third candidate from a smaller party, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, trailed far behind.
