Mexico opposition picks businesswoman Xochitl Galvez to run for president

Mexico's opposition coalition has named Xochitl Galvez, an outspoken senator with Indigenous roots who hopes to be the country's first woman president, as its candidate for next year's election.

The 60-year-old computer engineer and self-made businesswoman secured the support of the opposition bloc on Wednesday after an internal contest decided by public opinion polling.

"We have made the decision to support the sole candidacy of Xochitl Galvez to head the Broad Front for Mexico," announced Alejandro Moreno, leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party [PRI], one of the three parties in the alliance.

Galvez, who was backed by the conservative National Action Party [PAN], edged out another woman senator, Beatriz Paredes of the PRI.

Paredes was notably absent at the press conference at which Moreno spoke surrounded by sombre-looking party colleagues.

Galvez has repeatedly crossed swords with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a self-styled champion of the underprivileged.

She has criticised the leftwing populist's security strategy and said that "ovaries are needed" to confront organised crime in the violence-wracked country.

Born to an Indigenous Otomi father and mixed-race mother, Galvez wears Indigenous clothing, uses colloquial language and is known for travelling around Mexico City by bicycle.

The Broad Front for Mexico is made up of the PRI — which ruled the country for more than 70 years until 2000 — PAN and the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution.

Other rivals

Galvez looks likely to go head-to-head with former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, a 61-year-old scientist by training who is seen as the favourite to represent Lopez Obrador's National Regeneration Movement [MORENA] party in the June 2024 vote.

Sheinbaum's main internal rival is former foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard.

Both are close allies of Lopez Obrador, who enjoys an approval rating of more than 60 percent but is required by the constitution to leave office after a single six-year term.

Galvez is widely viewed as the candidate that could most weaken the iron hold Lopez Obrador's MORENA has on public opinion.

Still, the PRI's withdrawal of Paredes, who was not lagging far behind Galvez in some recent polling, left a bad taste in the mouth of some supporters, which could undermine the opposition alliance.

One prominent Paredes supporter, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed anger at the way she had been pulled from the race just days before voters were due to settle the matter.