Ruling party’s Sheinbaum wins Mexico presidency by landslide

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Claudia Sheinbaum, a close ally of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is set to become Mexico’s first female leader after preliminary results showed her on course to win an overwhelming victory in the Latin American nation’s election.

After a polarising campaign scarred by violence, former Mexico City mayor Sheinbaum of the ruling leftwing Morena party was on track to win with between 58.3 and 60.7 per cent of the vote.

That puts her at least 30 points clear of her centre-right opposition rival Xóchitl Gálvez on 26.6-28.6 per cent, according to a quick count of a representative sample of polling stations by electoral authority INE. A third candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, was on track to win 9.9-10.8 per cent.

The ruling Morena party, founded a decade ago by López Obrador, is also set to control both houses of congress and with two allied parties appears to be close to the two-thirds majority needed to secure constitutional changes, the results showed.

“We will respect business freedom and we will promote and facilitate with honesty private national and foreign investment,” Sheinbaum said after the preliminary results were announced. “My government will be honest, without influences or corruption, it will be a government with republican austerity.”

She said her competitors had called her to concede the election.

Mexico, which exports everything from cars and appliances to avocados and is the US’s number one trading partner, has a significant opportunity to attract investment amid trade tensions between the US and China. Mexico overtook China as the biggest exporter of goods to the US last year.

To capitalise on this, experts say Sheinbaum must tackle a wave of violence, invest in infrastructure to overcome serious water and electricity shortages and guarantee the rule of law. She also faces Mexico’s worst budget deficit since the 1980s.

On Sunday, violence broke out at some polling stations, with one set on fire, shots fired at two others and hours-long queues elsewhere. Dozens of polling stations were unable to operate because of threats.

At least 36 candidates were killed during the campaign, amid increased criminal control of the country’s politics, underscoring a key challenge for the new president.

Sheinbaum has promised to hew closely to the policies of López Obrador, a charismatic populist who won over the poor by doubling the minimum wage and boosting social programmes but put forward constitutional changes which critics say would weaken democracy. He was chastised by authorities for interfering in the election.

Sheinbaum has supported his expansion of military power and controversial proposals such as popular elections for supreme court judges and directors of the electoral institute, proposals that raised alarm among pro-democracy groups.

A former student activist of Jewish descent, Sheinbaum worked as a climate scientist and was a longtime party activist before following López Obrador into politics in the capital.