Nearly 100 million people are registered to vote in the race to replace outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico.
Mexicans will likely choose the first female president in the country’s history Sunday between a former academic who promises to further the current leader’s populist policies and an ex-senator and tech entrepreneur who pledges to up the fight against deadly drug cartels.
Nearly 100 million people are registered to vote in the race to replace outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Voters will also elect governors in nine of the country’s 32 states, and choose 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.
His Morena party currently holds 23 of the 32 governorships and a simple majority of seats in both houses of Congress. Mexico’s constitution prohibits the president’s reelection.
Early turnout appeared to be high in the capital with long lines of voters under clear skies.
Morena hopes to gain the two-thirds majority in Congress required to amend the constitution to eliminate oversight agencies that it says are unwieldy and wasteful.
The opposition, running in a loose coalition, argues that would endanger Mexico’s democratic institutions.
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, trails far behind.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum is running with the Morena party.
Sheinbaum, who leads in the race, has promised to continue all of López Obrador’s policies, including a universal pension for the elderly and a program that pays youths to apprentice.
Opposition presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez, whose father was Indigenous Otomi, rose from selling snacks on the street in her poor hometown to start her own tech firms.
