In the last debate before the June 2 presidential election, the three candidates vying for the Mexican presidency answered questions from moderators and traded barbs, as they sought to persuade the almost 100 million registered voters in the country.
Claudia Sheinbaum, the candidate for the ruling Morena Party; her main rival and opposition coalition candidate, Xóchitl Gálvez; and Citizen Movement candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez each opened their remarks at Mexico City’s Tlatelolco University with distinct messages for voters.
Álvarez Máynez promised to reinforce social programs, Gálvez declared herself a defender of “life, truth and freedom” and Sheinbaum, the front-runner, took the opportunity to bring up the Tlatelolco massacre of 1968, when the Mexican Army commanded “by a PRI president” killed hundreds of university students who were protesting police repression. The Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) is part of a coalition being represented by Gálvez in this election cycle.
Then came a shower of attacks and a landslide of promises. Gálvez said she would double scholarships so 1 million young people could attend university, while Máynez promised scholarships for everyone. Sheinbaum offered 1 million homes for young people and Gálvez offered 5 million residences. Sheinbaum also promised to create new megapharmacies and train thousands more medical specialists, while Gálvez announced a national health system in which all women with cancer could receive adequate treatment. Álvarez Máynez offered to equip police officers and guarantee a “living wage" and also promised to position Mexico as one of “the 10 economic powers in the world.” Sheinbaum assured that it would be in the Constitution that the minimum wage always increases above the rate of inflation.
But neither of the candidates elaborated on the details of how they would fulfill all these proposals.
There was no shortage of personal attacks during the meeting. “While you were dancing ballet at 10 years old, I had to work,” Gálvez told Sheinbaum. Gálvez, a senator of Indigenous descent, repeatedly called Sheinbaum “the candidate of lies.” In return, Sheinbaum, a climate scientist and a former mayor of Mexico City, reproached Gálvez for having “gassed police officers with sanitizer.” And Álvarez Máynez criticized both of them for not giving concrete answers to "questions they ask themselves."
The debate was divided into four segments in which the candidates discussed social policy; insecurity and organized crime, migration and foreign policy and democracy, division of powers and pluralism.
The final debate had no audience, unlike the first two debates. It also lacked the face-to-face section that the organizing committee had initially proposed, which would have provided a more direct and perhaps combative exchange between the candidates. It was canceled due to alleged pressure from the three presidential campaigns, the Mexican press reported.
Few specific policy proposals on security, a top voter concern
Regarding security and public safety, a top concern among voters, each candidate used different statistics to make their own points. Sheinbaum said that during her time as mayor of Mexico City, the perception of insecurity among residents decreased by 33%, to which Gálvez responded that supposedly 80% of the capital’s residents feel unsafe and that homicides increased by 22%.
Sheinbaum, who spent a good part of her time speaking of the achievements of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said that the current administration has put Mexico on the path of “zero impunity” for crimes.
But Sheinbaum's statement contrasts with figures from independent organizations that study the issue of impunity in Mexico. In 2022, for example, only 4% of the more than 2 million criminal investigations opened by the Attorney General’s Office ended in court, according to a report by México Evalúa, a public policy analysis center, published in October.
According to the center, which has documented the backwardness of the criminal justice system in Mexico since 2017, impunity has reached an average level of over 90%, which means the current law enforcement system solves only 10 out of every 100 crimes.
Gálvez questioned Sheinbaum — López Obrador's picked successor — for his 2020 encounter with María Consuelo Loera Pérez, the mother of convicted drug trafficker Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, while campaigning in the state of Sinaloa. Gálvez accused the government of handing "the country to organized crime."
But Sheinbaum, who leads in the polls, chose not to respond to this and other more personal attacks launched by her main rival.
In terms of security, the candidates resorted mostly to numbers and figures to attack each other or defend themselves, instead of offering solutions to tackle the problem.
Álvarez Máynez did offer a specific policy solution — the elimination of current prohibitions on drugs such as marijuana, which he said has brought violence to the country and has put thousands of people in prison. He also proposed decriminalizing abortion. “Never again will a woman be in jail for deciding about her body or a young man for smoking marijuana,” he said.
Avoiding the thorny topic of migration
The discussion on migration was almost overlooked, with none of the presidential candidates emphasizing the issue. The three agreed on the need for Mexico to be firm with the U.S. when negotiating agreements to stop migration, although they differed on what the López Obrador administration had achieved.
Sheinbaum said that Mexico has managed to get the U.S. to “treat it as equals” and praised the president’s achievements. Gálvez described López Obrador as a hypocrite and accused him of giving in to President Donald Trump in 2019 by agreeing to toughen immigration policies to stop the advance of migrants through Mexico without demanding that the U.S. offer legalization to undocumented Mexican immigrants who have lived in the U.S.
Echoing López Obrador, Sheinbaum emphasized that any solution to the transit of migrants through Mexican soil involves “addressing the structural causes of migration” and supporting Central America “so that no one has to migrate.” Sheinbaum said that her plan is to follow an idea by López Obrador to generate a development zone on the southern border and even suggested that the Mayan Train could extend to Central America to offer work to local populations.
Álvarez Máynez said that “Mexico needs firmness ... more so if a racist like Trump comes to power,” referring to the possibility that the former Republican president is elected in November.
None of the candidates, however, discussed López Obrador's restrictive policies to deter thousands of migrants from traveling through Mexican soil on their way to the U.S. The increased restrictions have contributed to more migrants using dangerous and deadly clandestine means — such as trailers — to cross the country toward the northern border. This has left more than 100 people dead and dozens injured in the last five years, a recent investigation by Noticias Telemundo and other media outlets found.
The truth is that Mexico is detaining almost three times as many migrants crossing its southern border as it did a year ago, a trend that, according to U.S. officials, has helped mitigate the increase in crossings, according to an NBC News exclusive report.
While Sheinbaum saluted and thanked the millions of U.S. Mexicans for the remittances they send to the country every year, Gálvez retorted saying that the money families receive is no longer enough for them due to inflation and the high price of the Mexican peso. “Before, the basic basket cost $73. Today it costs $138,” she said.
After laying out their cards to voters in their last debate, it will be up to Mexicans at the ballot box to decide which candidate had the winning hand.
A previous version of this story was first published in Noticias Telemundo.