MEXICO CITY — Mexican voters streamed into polling stations on Sunday morning for a presidential election that could bring to power a leftist who has attacked mainstream politicians and promises to eradicate corruption and defend the poor.
In his third consecutive campaign for president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, 64, has by far his best chance. He has dominated polls this election season, riding a wave of anger about government corruption and record-breaking drug war violence.
President Trump looms in the background of this vote. He has not been a wedge issue in the election — as all candidates have opposed his policies and anti-Mexican rhetoric — but the new Mexican president will have to manage cross-border relations that are unusually fraught.
If elected, Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor, would be the first leftist leader of Mexico since the country’s transition to democracy began three decades ago; a choice that would represent an emphatic rejection of the traditional political parties and politicians whom Lopez Obrador regularly calls the “mafia of power.”
Standing in his way are Ricardo Anaya, an ambitious 39-year-old former president of the right-leaning National Action Party (PAN); and a 49-year-old Yale-trained economist, Jose Antonio Meade, representing the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Both have lagged in the polls for much of the campaign.
Lopez Obrador’s opponents have sought to portray him as a dangerous and radical populist who will lead Mexico back to failed economic models of subsidies and state intervention, while provoking more tension with President Trump’s administration across the border.
But the unpopularity of President Enrique Peña Nieto and the PRI — which has ruled Mexico for most of the past century — has hobbled candidates from this and other traditional political parties. Meade is a respected technocrat who has served in several cabinet posts, but has languished in third place in many polls.
Election day began with the head of Mexico’s electoral agency, Lorenzo Cordova, stressing the importance of democracy and urging all sides to play by the rules. Cordova called voting “the most important tool that citizens have in a democracy to exercise control over power.”
“Never in a plural, diverse and unequal society — like ours — are citizens really so equal as on election day,” he said.
Mexico has a long history of voter fraud. In both of the past two elections Lopez Obrador has alleged fraud in his losses. In 2006, he and his supporters occupied a main Mexico City boulevard for weeks and he crowned himself the real president. Analysts worry that a closer than expected result, or an upset by one of the other candidates, might lead to new allegations of fraud or even unrest and violence. Election officials insist the voting system is safe and secure.
Lopez Obrador’s critics warn that he will be more combative toward the United States than the current president, Peña Nieto, and that U.S.-Mexico conflict could drastically escalate if he chooses to fight with Trump. Lopez Obrador and his team have insisted they want to preserve the North American Free Trade Agreement and maintain good relations with the Trump administration.
Trump has regularly attacked Mexico for not doing enough to stop drugs, crime and illegal immigrants from entering the United States. He has also initiated a renegotiation of NAFTA, saying Mexico has stolen American jobs, and intends to build a border wall.
Lopez Obrador, a famously early riser, arrived at around 7:30 a.m. in southern Mexico City, at a polling center inside an office of Mexico’s national water commission. He voted a few minutes before 9:00 a.m., and gave a thumbs up to the crowd.
“This is a historic day,” Lopez Obrador said. “The Mexican people are going to decide freely.
“We represent the possibility of a real change, of a transformation,” he added.
Anaya and Meade voted later in the morning.
Sunday’s elections are the largest in Mexico’s history, with voters choosing more than 3,200 positions at all levels of government. Among these are 628 members of the national congress, who will be able to be re-elected for the first time in nearly a century; 9 state governors; and mayors of more than 1,500 cities, including Mexico City.
Lopez Obrador’s leftist party, the National Regeneration Movement, or Morena, is even hoping to capture a majority in congress, which would be a remarkable rise for a party he founded four years ago.
The campaign season has endured brutal violence, with some 130 candidates and campaign staff assassinated across the country. Candidates on Sunday called for a calm and peaceful vote.
By the time the voting booths were supposed to open in Ecatepec – a working-class city north of Mexico’s capital – over a hundred people were at the gate of a local cultural center. As election officials waited for citizens assigned to work the polls the crowd started to whistle to demand that the gates be opened.
“If they don’t pay attention to us now, do you think they’ll pay attention to the votes?” shouted Miguel Angel Serrano, 67, at the front of the line.
Mexico state has traditionally been a stronghold of the PRI, and it is also the home state of the current president, Enrique Peña Nieto. Such areas are seen as barometers for the shifting political mood in Mexico, and its poverty and widespread violence are glaring examples of the most pressing issues in this year’s vote.
“The PRI has won here for many year, but this year it’s going to lose, because dissent is high,” said Luis Valdepeña Bastida, 51, as he waited to cast his ballot.
Valdepeña had voted for Lopez Obrador in the past two elections and planned to do the same on Sunday. He was tired of daily murders, including the high rate of femicide, and the poor education system.
“Voting is the only tool we have to ensure that this corrupt system changes,” he said. “The people are fed up.”
Others found Lopez Obrador’s promises for change unrealistic.
Keila Gonzalez Garcia, 33, who works in a company that produces personal hygiene products, said she was preparing to cast her vote for Anaya, because she felt that the PAN would prevent a disastrous presidency.
“I’m voting for him to make sure the peje does not win,” she said, using López Obrador’s nickname. “He has a rose-tinted idea of the world, but I don’t think it’s possible…Where is he going to get all the money for his plans?”
Averbuch reported from Ecatepec.
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