Mexico’s opposition parties have a new top candidate for the 2024 presidential election who’s caught the public’s eye for her open criticism of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, according to a local poll.
In the July poll by El Financiero, 22% of voters said they preferred Senator Xochitl Galvez to other candidates from the opposition parties, far more than the 16% who said they favored her closest competitor, congressional leader Santiago Creel.
Opposition parties, which include the National Action Party, or PAN, Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and Party of the Democratic Revolution, known as PRD, have lost ground in recent years to the president’s Morena party, which has maintained control of Congress and won over state governorships that previously belonged to them.
A wide field of contenders have announced interest in being the nominee, with the embattled opposition coalition, Frente Amplio Por Mexico, expected to pick a candidate by early September.
Galvez has provoked the ire of the president, who criticized her business activities earlier in the week. She previously served as a commissioner of indigenous affairs under former President Vicente Fox and has been a local leader of Miguel Hidalgo, an affluent part of Mexico City.
Other key points from the poll:
— Voters’ favorable opinion of Galvez stood at 36%, Creel’s at 31%, and that of Enrique de la Madrid, the son of former president Miguel de la Madrid, at 28%.
— The telephone poll of 400 people was taken on July 14-15 with a previous poll of 500 people on July 7-8, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9% and plus or minus 4.4% respectively.
