Mexico’s ruling party has named former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum as its candidate for the 2024 presidential elections, putting her in pole position to become the country’s first woman leader.

Mexico will go to the polls on June 2 to elect a successor to popular incumbent Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is barred by the constitution from serving a second six-year term.

Sheinbaum, 61, was chosen on Wednesday following a series of surveys of members of the ruling Morena party.

The party’s national council president, Alfonso Durazo, said that Sheinbaum beat former Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard, her closest rival, by double figures in five party surveys.

Sheinbaum is a close ally of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) and as Morena’s candidate, she will enjoy a distinct advantage. Last week, a broad opposition coalition selected female lawmaker Xochitl Galvez as its candidate.

Hours before Wednesday’s announcement, Ebrard complained of irregularities in the process and said it should be redone, accusing his party of increasingly resembling the Institutional Revolutionary Party that ruled Mexico for 71 years, famously allowing each president to select his successor.

He said he would decide on Monday how to proceed.

Trained as an environmental scientist, Sheinbaum sits solidly on the left of the ideological spectrum.

She has frequently echoed AMLO’s condemnation of the neoliberal economic policies of earlier Mexican presidents, blaming them for the country’s gaping inequality and high levels of violence.

Source: Al Jazeera 

BDST: 1012 HRS, SEP 07, 2023
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