During 2023, before the presidential elections occur in 2024, gubernatorial elections in the State of Mexico will be held, which will be an indicator of what could happen at the end of the current presidential administration. The importance of the election in the State of Mexico has multiple causes. It is the most densely populated state in Mexico, which from a political point of view means votes. In 2020, in accordance with the last census, 17 million people lived in this state that surrounds Mexico City, which with nine million inhabitants is the second most populated state in the country. Additionally, the State of Mexico has significant economic and industrial development and is home to highly populated cities. It has been a bastion of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that is currently governing the state.
MORENA, the party of the current federal administration, decided to reveal its candidate for governor with the purpose of starting pre-campaign events that will position her. The nomination was for Delfina Gómez, the former head of the Mexican Department of Public Education, who resigned from such group to run, which shows the importance of the nomination. It is not the first time that Delfina Gómez has been a candidate, as six years ago she also participated as a candidate for MORENA and lost to the current PRI governor, Alfredo del Mazo.
The question is if there will be an alliance of the opposition to face who would seem to be the candidate to beat from MORENA. The National Action Party (PAN) named as its candidate Enrique Vargas del Villar, mayor of Huixquilucan, an important municipality that borders Mexico City. This nomination would not prevent a common candidacy from the PRI, PAN, Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and Citizen Movement (MC) opposition parties. Both the decision to integrate a common candidacy and the result of the election will be of particular relevance for the already much awaited presidential election to take place in 2024. The political thermometer will reach very high temperatures by then.
