For the first time in the Mexico’s history both federal and local elections in 29 states will be held on the same date. Voters will also elect senators and deputies to both houses of Congress as well as a couple of thousand local public officials.

For the local elections, eight governorships — in the states of Chiapas, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Morelos, Puebla, Tabasco, Veracruz and Yucatán — and 1,596 municipalities will be contested on 1 July.

As for presidential elections, it is usually five states — Mexico State, Mexico City, Jalisco, Veracruz, and Puebla — that have a combined majority of voters and that have therefore traditionally decided the election. Coincidentally, these five states also have the highest crime rates and the spiralling number of murders has made the past year the most violent on record.

For this reason, presidential and gubernatorial candidates will probably focus their campaign rhetoric on security by either criticising their rivals track record or making promises on the issue to win votes. For example, on 28 December, it was Partido Acción Nacional’s (PAN) presidential candidate, Ricardo Anaya (b.1979), who was criticising and blaming the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional’s (PRI) coalition for 2017’s horrendous figures in Mexico State, which has always been governed by the PRI.

These five states also register the highest number of recorded fuel theft, another factor that will definitely be pushed in the local campaigns, which is most likely to be associated with the current price of gasoline. The issue has already been used by Andrés Manuel López Obrador — and his recently established Juntos Haremos Historia (Together we will make history) coalition — to criticise the PRI.

A solid security strategy, combined with traditional campaign promises of employment growth and opportunities, will be the make or break for candidates if they are to win in this year’s election.

This is part of an article taken from our newly established Mexico Politics & Security. If you have any enquiries on its content, or a related matter, then please contact the consultancy team