Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first female president, will continue Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s work, which was popular among the poor.
According to Mexico’s electoral authority’s rapid sample count, climate scientist and former Mexico City mayor Sheinbaum won the president with 58.3% to 60.7% of the vote. The biggest vote percentage in Mexico’s democratic history lies ahead.
Sheinbaum is the first female US, Mexican, or Canadian general election winner.
The election commission also predicted a two-thirds super majority in both houses of Congress for the current coalition, allowing it to pass constitutional revisions without resistance.
On Sunday morning, Sheinbaum told journalists it was a “historic day” and she felt calm and satisfied before voting. Mexicans are known for their machismo, and her six-year tenure begins Oct. 1 when results are finalised.
With 38 candidates killed, Mexico’s largest elections were the most violent ever. The violent violence has raised fears about drug cartels’ threat to democracy. Two persons were slain at Puebla voting locations on Sunday.
Sheinbaum, who leads polls over her primary opponent Xochitl Galvez, will fight organised crime. Even though the homicide rate has dropped, outgoing president Lopez Obrador has killed more people than any other administration in Mexico’s modern history.
Long queues of voters waited outside polling stations before 8 a.m. local time, with several delayed openings.
“It feels like a dream. Edelmira Montiel, 87, a Sheinbaum supporter in Mexico’s smallest state of Tlaxcala, said she never thought she would vote for a woman.
“We couldn’t vote before, and when we could, it was for your husband’s candidate. Thank God that changed and I can live it, Montiel said.
Sunday’s election in Mexico included nearly 100 million voters. Eight governorships and both congressional chambers were also at stake.
