The first female president of Machista Mexico

By Heidi Osuna

Unless something extraordinary happens, next June 2, Mexico will elect its first female president for the first time in history. The parties that have historically won the presidency in this country decided to nominate women, not because of a gender quota, but because both Claudia Sheinbaum and Xóchitl Gálvez were the best positioned profiles in the polls of their respective parties. 

Those of us who are dedicated to opinion polls have observed the evolution of the Mexican electorate's opinion regarding women. In the 2012 federal election, the polls we conducted told us that, in general, women candidates subtracted between 3% and 8% from their parties' acronyms, just because they were women.