The era of ends Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Said amlo, Chairman of the Mexico from 1 December 2018, and for the first time taking on the role of president of the Latin American country will most likely be a womens. at elections next June 2nd in fact they challenge each other claudia sheinbaum, the former governor of the capital Mexico City, from Amlo's party, Moraine, and Xóchitl Galvez, candidate of Fuerza y Corazón por México (Strength and Courage for Mexico), a coalition that brings together all the traditional parties that have characterized the political history of Mexico and with a generally liberal traction, of center. Gàlvez would be not only the first woman but also the first indigenous president of the country. The fight should be limited to the two of them, with Sheinbaum currently ahead in the polls, but anything can still happen in a country that will call almost 100 million voters to vote and that is emerging from a contradictory phase.
Mexico, Amlo's legacy in chiaroscuro
Amlo's legacy is in fact decidedly chiaroscuro. On the one hand, Mexico is in a phase of good economic growth, benefiting above all from the nearshoring American which brought the epicenter of Stars and Stripes economic activities back to the American continent and further afield China, to the point that in 2023 Mexico returned after 20 years to be the country's first trading partner United States, bypassing Beijing and seeing GDP grow by 3,1%, against forecasts which at the beginning of the year were much more prudent and predicted a +1,6%. Instead, according to the projections of the International Monetary Fund, the Central American country has become the twelfth economy in the world (it was the fourteenth) and firmly the second in Latin America behind the Brazil, with GDP estimated to grow again this year by between 2,1 and 2,5%. Furthermore, nearshoring should bring cascading benefits to the entire South American continent, and for this reason the presidential elections are followed very carefully throughout the area, given that at stake is becoming the supply chain of the United States and also the possible place of relocation of many companies, including high tech ones, which in the past chose China. Just to give an example, Tesla announced the construction of a gigafactory right in Mexico, where it will invest 5 billion dollars.
Mexico at the vote, the desirable candidate according to analysts
From this point of view, many analysts consider the opposition candidate's success preferable, Galvez, who has a decidedly more business-oriented and less statist posture than Amlo and his helphin Sheinbaum. Although much will also depend on who wins the race for the White House in November: in the case of a return of Donald Trump, the relationships between USA and Mexico they could get complicated due to the immigration issue. However, despite being formally "left-wing", Amlo has not failed to make conservative choices in recent years, such as the growing militarization of the country and the construction of infrastructure works that are important for the economy and tourism but devastating for the environment. It makes you think of the much discussed one Mayan Train, called to connect the main tourist areas of five Southeastern states (Yucatán, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Chiapas and Tabasco) through the Mesoamerican tropical humid forest (the second largest in Latin America, afterAmazon), putting the karst ecosystem at risk; but also to the Corredor Transístmico, the large railway infrastructure designed to connect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, offering an alternative "land canal" to the Panama maritime canal.
The geopolitical role of Mexico in Latin America
Furthermore, a choice in continuity with Amlo may not facilitate the already very tense political-diplomatic relations with the rest of Latin America: the outgoing president is one of those ideologically close or at least not hostile to Cuba and Venezuela, in a historical moment in which a conservative wave is instead asserting itself led by Javier Milei's Argentina and in which precisely the Venezuela goes to the vote amidst a thousand controversies. Furthermore, Lopez Obrador has already argued bitterly with Milei himself and has severed diplomatic relations with theEcuador of another emerging right-wing leader, the young Daniel Noboa, after he ordered the Ecuadorian police to attack the Mexican embassy in Quito in April to capture former vice-president Jorge Glas, convicted of criminal association and corruption. He was practically left alone to "root" with conviction for the victory of Amlo's heir the president of Brazil Lula, whose leadership in the area, according to the press of their country, would instead be weakened if Sheinbaum were not to win.
Mexico to vote, crime worries
But beyond the economy and international issues, for Mexican citizens the great theme of the electoral campaign is crime. As mentioned, Amlo has militarized the country with the promise of bringing more security, but this has not prevented the escalation of violence, even at a high level: 25 candidates (also counting those in the administrative elections that will take place at the same time) have already been assassinated, and another 300 politicians are currently under guard. The six years of Amlo's government, according to official data, were the most violent in the history of Mexico: murders numbered more than 182.000, an average of over 30.000 per year, while in the 10.000s the figure had fallen below XNUMX. Yet, perhaps precisely because Amlo gave a lot of power and therefore credibility to the Armed Forces, the perception of insecurity among the population is not that high, indeed it has paradoxically decreased from 73% to 61% with the current presidency. Citizens' trust in the Army is at an all-time high, over 82%. This is because Amlo increased their salaries, making him at least apparently less corruptible. This is why, despite everything, the outgoing president still enjoys very high popularity, around 60%. Will his candidate benefit from it or will a new phase in Mexico's history open?
