Mexico’s main opposition candidate vows to confront cartels

Mexico’s opposition presidential candidate Xóchitl Gálvez has promised to tackle the country’s powerful drug cartels head on, criticising the government’s “hugs not bullets” strategy as negligent in an interview ahead of June elections.

Mexicans are experiencing a wave of violence that has been growing for more than 15 years, with criminal groups killing with near impunity, controlling swaths of the country and extending their tentacles into local politics, according to experts.

The solution is “confronting criminals,” Gálvez told the Financial Times in an interview, calling security her number one priority.

“No one has as much power as the state and you have to use it. You have to use it intelligently but firmly.”

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador created a new military-run national guard to improve security and pledged to tackle the root causes of violent crime, such as economic hardship. But more people have been murdered and gone missing during his six-year term, which ends this September, than in that of any other Mexican president.

Gálvez, a self-made businesswoman who was initially a long shot for the opposition candidacy, is running at the head of a three-party opposition coalition. Most polls put her 10 to 20 points behind frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum, the candidate from the incumbent party, although the opposition argues that many of the surveys are biased.

Some Mexicans are wary of a confrontational approach to organised crime, tracing the country’s rising tide of violence back to former president Felipe Calderón’s all-out war on drugs, which was launched in 2006.

But since then, the country’s powerful cartels have grown and branched out into lucrative new businesses such as the synthetic opioid fentanyl, as well as extortion and migrant trafficking.

Gálvez, 61, said she would pay police better, invest more in security, and that the government’s slogan of “hugs not bullets” had failed.

“The bullets have been for citizens,” she said.

The violence is also an obstacle to growing foreign investment at a time when Mexico appears well-placed to benefit from the escalating US-China trade war.

Mexico is now the US’s largest trading partner, but investment in the country has been held back by factors that also include a shortage of clean electrical power, water and suitable land, and concerns about the investment climate.

The López Obrador government has been careful not to court China, particularly as the USMCA trade agreement with the US and Canada comes up for review in 2026.

Gálvez shares the government’s caution: “The trade polarisation between China and the United States tells us clearly that Mexico must not get this wrong,” she said.

Where she differs from the ruling Morena party is on the relationship Mexico should have with countries such as Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba, towards which the current government has often taken an uncritical approach.

“I won’t associate myself with authoritarian and corrupt governments,” she said. “I know how to read a map, and we’re part of North America and our commercial interests are in Canada and the United States.”

After an initial burst of enthusiasm, polls suggest Gálvez’s campaign has struggled to gain ground beyond core opposition voters. Poll aggregator Oraculus places her coalition on 34 per cent of the vote, exactly where she was in August 2023 when she won the nomination.

Gálvez, who often wears a traditional huipil blouse and references her indigenous roots, said the polls were not capturing a large “hidden” vote in her favour, and that she was not competing in fair conditions.

Mexico, which had one-party rule for 70 years until 2000, imposes strict rules on what the incumbent government can say during campaigns. President López Obrador, who is barred by the constitution from running for re-election, has been chastised by the independent electoral authority, INE, multiple times for making comments in favour of his party during his marathon morning press conferences.

Morena, the ruling party, has put huge resources into its advertising campaign. Rival candidates have complained that it also used government infrastructure to help Sheinbaum, something the government denies. The party launched its version of a presidential primary last year before the rules allowed, with Gálvez’s alliance following suit.

“It’s not normal to have to compete against the president and against the candidate,” Gálvez said.

Political analysts say that Gálvez’s campaign has been hurt by infighting between the opposition parties in her coalition, which have a major image problem from past failures in government and are constantly slated by López Obrador. Asked whether the opposition alliance would break up if she lost, Gálvez insisted it would endure.

Morena has said it wants to win a two-thirds majority in congress to pass a constitutional overhaul of key institutions including popularly elected leaders of bodies like the Supreme Court and INE. The opposition warns that the plans pose a risk to democracy.

“His dream is of a one-man Mexico, of one party,” she said of López Obrador. “The return of an authoritarian regime is just around the corner.”

Gálvez cites Mother Teresa, Mexican writer and nun Juana Inés de la Cruz and former German leader Angela Merkel as inspirations. She said that a blessing from Pope Francis would help her confront the country’s criminals.

Her vision is a “svelte” state with the private sector as an ally, as opposed to the ruling party which she said “hates” businesspeople, thinking they are all corrupt.

Gálvez’s experience of setting up her own company, which gives advice on smart buildings, would make her a better president, she said.

“I’m sure the country in the hands of a woman who knows how to manage money is going to work better,” she said. “At the end of the day, what people want is a well-paid job.”