Supporters of presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez chant her name during a campaign rally in Los Reyes la Paz, outside Mexico City, Wednesday, May 29, 2024 .
Fernando Plains/AP
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Fernando Plains/AP
MEXICO CITY — Mexico held its final day of campaigning Wednesday before Sunday’s national election, but final rallies were dimmed by attacks on candidates and the country’s persistently high homicide rate.
Earlier on Wednesday, opposition candidate Xochitl Galvez began her final campaign rally in a Mexico City suburb, focusing her ire on President Andres Manuel López. Obrador doesn’t fight drug cartels on his “hugs not bullets” policy.
Galvez will face former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Scheinbaum, the candidate of López Obrador’s Morena party. Scheinbaum, who is leading the race, has pledged to continue all of Lopez Obrador’s policies.
“Are we going to keep hugging or are we going to apply the law to criminals?” Galvez asked the cheering crowd. “Mexico wants peace, wants tranquility.”
López Obrador has defunded the police force and transferred it to the paramilitary National Guard, which critics say lacks the professional and investigative capabilities needed to fight drug gangs. Galvez pledged to return funds to police forces and guarantee their monthly salaries of at least $1,200.
Galvez also promised reconciliation in a country highly polarized by the outgoing president’s rhetoric, saying “enough division, enough hatred… we are all Mexicans.”
Later Wednesday, Scheinbaum held a final rally in Mexico City’s vast colonial-era central plaza. She delivered a fiercely nationalistic speech to a large crowd.
“Mexico is respected in the world, it’s a reference point,” said Sheinbaum, who claimed that the López Obrador government “allowed us to regain our pride as Mexicans.”
“Mexico has changed, and for the better,” she said.
On the issue of violence, Sheinbaum vowed to continue López Obrador’s policies of providing apprenticeships and encouraging young people not to join drug cartels.
“We will deepen the peace and security strategy and the progress that has been made,” she said. “This is not an iron-fist” policy, Sheinbaum said. “This is justice.”
Supporters of presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum attend her closing campaign rally in Zocalo, Mexico City, Wednesday, May 29, 2024.
Matthias Delacroix/AP
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Matthias Delacroix/AP
Gang violence casts shadow on campaign
Although López Obrador has raised the country’s minimum wage and increased government welfare programs, he has been unable to significantly reduce the historically high homicide rate, which currently stands at more than 30,000 a year nationwide. Gang-fueled violence has also cast a pall over the campaign.
A mayoral candidate in the violent southern state of Guerrero was shot dead in the town of Coyuca de Benitez late Wednesday. Gov. Evelyn Salgado identified the dead candidate as Alfredo Cabrera but gave no further details about his killing. Local media reported that he was shot in the head during a campaign closing event.
A mayoral candidate in the western state of Jalisco was shot multiple times by an intruder inside his campaign office late Tuesday. Two members of Gilberto Palomar’s campaign were also injured and all three were hospitalized with serious injuries, Jalisco state’s national security coordinator Sanchez Beruben said.
Mexicans will vote on Sunday in an election that weighs gender, democracy and populism as they chart a path forward for a country cast in the shadow of cartel violence. With two women leading the race, Mexico is likely to elect its first female president. According to the National Elections Institute, there are more than 20,000 congressional and local positions up for grabs.
Gunmen killed an alternate mayoral candidate in the state of Morelos, south of Mexico City, on Tuesday, state prosecutors said.
Local media reported that assailants on motorcycles shot Ricardo Arizmendi five times in the head in the city of Cuautla, Morelos state. If the winner of the contest becomes incapacitated or resigns, an alternate candidate will take office.
Some 27 candidates have been killed so far this year, mostly candidates running for mayor or town council. While the numbers aren’t much higher than some past elections, the mass shootings are unprecedented: Candidates have been killed in targeted attacks in the past, but now criminals are shooting at entire campaigns.
