Thousands attend Sheinbaum's final rally before presidential run in Mexico
Thousands of supporters of former Head of Government of Mexico City and presidential pre-candidate for the Morena party Claudia Sheinbaum take part in a rally at the Monument to the Revolution.
The ruling party candidate is expected to be announced on September 6, 2023, based on a public opinion poll that picks its candidate from among six contenders, before entering the main stage of the race against the opposition.
A former foreign minister and a former Mexico City mayor, who is seeking to be the country's first woman president, are locked in a marathon contest for the ruling party nomination ahead of elections next year.
"I'm a woman of results," proclaimed Claudia Sheinbaum, a scientist by training who until recently was in charge of the Mexican capital.
"It's not a question of gender," said her main rival Marcelo Ebrard, who handled the country's foreign policy until stepping down in a bid to replace President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Both hopefuls are close allies of the president, a leftwing populist 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.
Despite a limited budget, Sheinbaum, 61, and Ebrard, 63, have been crisscrossing a country plagued by drug violence and poverty since June to drum up support.
There are still 11 months to go before the elections, and almost two months before the ruling party announces its candidate from among six contenders.
Wearing sneakers, jeans and an embroidered blouse, Sheinbaum recently addressed around 1,500 people in a sweltering marquee usually used for cockfights in the southeastern city of Tapachula.
Microphone in hand, she began with a history lesson, in the manner of her mentor Lopez Obrador, who baptized his reform drive Mexico's "fourth transformation" since independence in 1821.
Sheinbaum defended Lopez Obrador's record and avoided any criticism of her internal rivals. "I don't like to speak ill of my colleagues," she told AFP when asked why she was a better choice than Ebrard.
Even so, she points out that she was "never a member of the PRI" -- the once-dominant party that governed the country for more than 70 years until 2000 -- unlike Ebrard.
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