MEXICO CITY — Mexicans began voting Sunday in a presidential election expected to make former Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador the country’s first leftist president since the 1980s.
Pre-election surveys gave López Obrador, who made the fight against corruption the theme of his campaign, more than a 20-percentage-point lead over the other two main candidates, conservative Ricardo Anaya and José Antonio Meade of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party.
For many voters, the word of the day is “change” — change from traditional political parties seen as venal, from soaring criminal violence across the country, and from a free-market economic model that has sparked an investment boom but has yet to reduce poverty or inequality.
Margarita Silva, a 45-year-old English teacher in central Hidalgo state, said she voted for President Enrique Peña Nieto in 2012, but said she was casting her ballot this time for López Obrador. “He won’t be able to get rid of corruption from one day to the next, but at least he can make a start,” she said as she lined up early Sunday at a polling station.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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