Millions of Mexicans voted on Sunday in the country's most populous state, where the ruling left-wing Morena movement is poised to consolidate its influence by seizing the last major bastion of the former ruling party PRI , one year before the presidential election.
In total, 12.6 million voters were to designate the governor of the State of Mexico, the region on the outskirts of the capital which sums up all the contrasts of Mexico, between violence and economic dynamism.
In this last big test before the presidential election of mid-2024, Morena's candidate, Delfina Gomez, is well ahead of the polls against the PRI candidate, Alejandra del Moral, who has also admitted defeat.
Presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had a nine-point lead, according to an estimate of the National Electoral Institute (INE)'s first results after the polls closed.
The candidate and her team were already celebrating the victory before the announcement of the official results, noted an AFP photographer.
Turnout "is quite high," INE said during the day, also mentioning Sunday's other election in the northern state of Coahuila.
The victory of Delfina Gomez one year before the presidential election would confirm the new hegemony of the Movement for National Regeneration (Morena), which already governs 22 of the 32 states of the federation, alone or with its allies.
Delfina Gomez is driven by the popularity of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in business since December 2018.
In power from 1930 to 2000, and back between 2012 and 2018, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), described in its time as "perfect dictatorship" by Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, would thus lose its last great historical bastion.
"I hope it will be a beautiful day for the Mexicans (ndr: the inhabitants of the State of Mexico), full of tranquility", declared Delfina Gomez while going to vote.
With 17 million inhabitants - as many as the Netherlands, more than Quebec or Belgium - the State of Mexico is a "mini-Republic", according to political scientist Miguel Tovar of the firm Alterpraxis.
The state is one of the most violent in the country, especially in the cities of the capital's metropolitan area, while having an important industrial fabric (Ford, Nestlé). Its economy represents 9.1% of the national GDP.
Elections are also taking place on Sunday in the mining state of Coahuila (north).
In this state bordering the United States, Morena presented himself in scattered order with the dissident candidacy of a former secretary of state in the government of Lopez Obrador.
The division of the party in power was to allow the PRI to keep the favors of a majority of the 2.3 million registered voters.
05/06/2023 05:41:51 - Mexico (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
