Mexico has a presidential election every six years, and the United States every four years.
Every 12 years, therefore, Mexico and the United States have a presidential election the same year.
This year, 2024, is one of those years.
The Mexican election of 2024 is scheduled for June 2nd.
To win the Mexican election, a candidate must win a plurality of the popular vote.
There are two major candidates for president, and both are women. That means it is most likely that before this year is over, Mexico will have its first female president.
The two principal candidates are Claudia Sheinbaum and Xochitl Galvez.
CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM
Claudia Sheinbaum is the candidate of MORENA, the political party of current president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO). Two smaller parties, the Labor Party and the Green Party, are in coalition with MORENA in the Sigamos Haciendo Historia (Let’s Keep Making History) alliance.
Sheinbaum was born in 1962 in Mexico City.
She is an ethnic Jew, though apparently does not practice Judaism as a religion. Her father was an Ashkenazi Jew and her mother a Sephardi Jew.
A scientist, Sheinbaum studied physics in Mexico’s UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) and earned her PhD in energy engineering at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California in the U.S.A.
Dr. Sheinbaum has written more than 100 articles and two books dealing with energy, environment and sustainable development.
In 2007, Dr. Sheinbaum was on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at the United Nations in the field of energy and industry and was part of a group that won the Nobel Peace Prize.
From 2000 to 2006, Dr. Sheinbaum was Mexico City’s Secretary of the Environment. From 2015 to 2017 she was mayor of Tlalpan, a borough in Mexico City.
From 2018 to 2023, Claudia Sheinbaum was Mayor of Mexico City.
XOCHITL GALVEZ
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Xochitl Galvez is the candidate of the Fuerza y Corazón por México (Strength and Heart for Mexico) alliance, formed by three parties: the PAN, the PRI and the PRD.
Xochitl Galvez was born in the central state of Hidalgo in 1963. Her father was Otomi Indian and her mother mestizo (mixed Otomi and European).
She studied computer engineering at the UNAM.
Xochitl Galvez was an entrepreneur, founding a technology company called High Tech Services. This company dealt with such things as designing intelligent buildings, saving energy, automation, telecoms and security.
She also started a company called OMEI, which dealt with intelligent infrastructures.
Recognitions for her work include being named as one of 100 Global Leaders of the World’s Future at the World Economic Forum Davos in 1999 and as one of 25 Latin America’s New Business Elite by Business Week in 2000.
In 1995 she founded the Porvenir Foundation to fight child malnutrition and help women in areas of Mexico with large indigenous populations.
In the Mexican federal government she directed the Instituto Nacional de los Pueblos Indígenas (the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples) from 2000 to 2006.
From 2015 to 2018 Galvez was mayor of Miguel Hidalgo, a borough in Mexico City. She was a Mexican Senator from 2018 to 2023.
JORGE ALVAREZ MAYNEZ
Jorge Alvarez Maynez , the male candidate, is standard bearer of the Movimiento Ciudadano (Citizen Movement Party).
Alvarez was born in the northern city of Zacatecas, in Zacatecas State, and served in the Mexican Congress from 2015 to 2018 and 2021 to 2024.
In 2022, Alvarez Maynez and 3 other Mexican congressional representatives traveled to Ukraine, having been invited by the Ukrainian Parliament.
WHO WILL WIN?
Currently, Dr. Sheinbaum is winning in the polls. But things could change.
Recent poll results:
- Reforma Poll (March 6th-12, 1000 adults ); After 17% with no preference were subtracted,
58% of those remaining supported Sheinbaum and 34% supported Galvez. - Oraculus Poll (as of March 20): Sheinbaum 60%; Galvez 34%; Alvarez Maynez 6%.