UPDATE Elections: In a True Democracy, the People Rules: AMLO

On Sunday, over 98 million Mexicans are called to elect the president who will govern their country between 2024 and 2026. The candidates competing for the Mexican presidency are Claudia Sheinbaum (Let’s Keep Making History), Xochitl Galvez (Strength and Heart for Mexico) and Jorge Alvarez (Citizen Movement).

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Citizens will also elect 500 legislators, 128 senators, nine governors, and over 20,000 subnational authorities such as mayors, councilors and legislators. The main events as they occur are presented below.

11:00 am: President Lopez Obrador casts his vote. Accompanied by his wife Beatriz Gutierres, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador went to vote in an election to define who will succeed him in the government as of October 1.

“Cheer up!” he said after being one of the first to vote at a voting center inside the Museum of Art in downtown Mexico City.

“In true democracy it is the people who rule. Everything else is accessory. Tonight we will know what the Mexicans freely decided,” he later wrote in his X account.

Lopez Obrador, who could not seek re-election as determined by the Mexican Constitution, is betting on the victory of his party’s candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum, who is the favorite to win according to the polls published so far.

The text reads, “Today there are general elections in Mexico. At a time of growth of the extreme right, the possible victory of Claudia Sheinbaum will not only make a woman president for the first time in the history of the country but will also position the left as a national project beyond the Lopez Obrador’s leadership.”

10:30 am: Claudia Sheinbaum votes accompanied by dozens of supporters. The presidential candidate of the coalition “Let’s Keep Making History” voted in San Andres Totoltepec, a town in the Tlalpan delegation, in Mexico City. After waiting in line for an hour, the leftist politician entered the electoral precinct and came out smiling.

“You shouldn’t be afraid. Go out and vote,” she said amid the uproar generated by citizens who cheered her with shouts of “President, President, President!”

“Don’t forget Tlalpan, your people needs you,” several neighbors shouted while Sheinbaum greeted the people of the town of San Andres Totoltepec, where she served as municipal delegate between 2015 and 2018.

Sheinbaum was the second presidential candidate to vote on Sunday morning. Previously, Jorge Alvarez, the candidate of the Citizen Movement, and Xochitl Galvez, the candidate of the far-right coalition “Strength and Heart for Mexico”, had already voted.

8:00 am: Electoral precincts open their doors. The National Electoral Institute (INE) announced that 170,000 electoral centers have been installed throughout the country to serve citizens from 8:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. Some 27,245 members of the armed forces are providing security during the electoral process.

Starting at 8:00 p.m., the INE will publish the first electoral results. Later, between 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., INE President Guadalupe Taddei will announce the quick count’s results.}