Mexico set to elect first female president in historic vote
Al Jazeera
The vote has been heralded as a major step in Mexico, with the winner becoming the first woman leader in a country often criticised for its macho culture.
Mexicans are voting in national elections with the ruling party candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum, commanding a hefty lead in the polls and expected to become the country’s first female president.
Polls have consistently placed Sheinbaum about 20 percentage points ahead of her closest challenger Xochitl Galvez of an opposition coalition comprised of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico for seven decades until democratic elections in 2000, the right-wing PAN, and the leftist PRD party.
There were already long lines outside voting centres when the polls opened at 8am local time (starting at 13:00 GMT). Polls will close at 6pm (starting at 23:00 GMT on Monday), and the first official preliminary results are expected soon afterwards.
Sheinbaum, speaking to journalists from the passenger side of a car, said it was a historic day and she felt at ease on her way to vote.
“Everyone must get out to vote,” Sheinbaum, a physicist and former Mexico City mayor, said during a live broadcast on local TV.
