Election in Mexico's most populous state seen as preview of 2024 national contest

New Delhi: Mexicans in two states, including the country's most populous, awaited results of elections Sunday for new governors, having only known single-party rule for nearly a century.

The State of Mexico hugs Mexico City on three sides, encompassing urban sprawl and rural ranches, as well as stunning inequality, violence and corruption. For decades it has been the heart of the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

But its voters could be ready to finally oust the PRI in favor of President Andr s Manuel L pez Obrador's Morena party, in a race closely watched as a preview of the 2024 presidential election.

Right after the polls closed on a largely uneventful day of peaceful voting both candidates claimed victory.

"It is a recurring and very regrettable practice in Mexican elections to win the narrative in the media," said political scientist Georgina de la Fuente, noting that it would be several more hours before electoral authorities announced their preliminary quick count analysis.

Morena candidate Delfina G mez, a schoolteacher making her second bid for the post, has held a healthy lead in recent polling over Alejandra del Moral. The former mayor representing the PRI has struggled to attract a fed-up electorate bent on change.

Del Moral is not only the PRI's hope. She leads a bizarre coalition including the conservative National Action Party and leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution that have only in common the desire to deny L pez Obrador's party control of Mexico's largest state electoral prize. She voted Sunday in Cuautitlan Izcalli, a suburb northwest of Mexico City.

G mez has campaigned largely on the far-reaching support for L pez Obrador's popular social programs. She voted early on a warm and sunny Sunday in a school in Texcoco, east of Mexico City.

"We want change, for them to pay attention to us," said Rufina P rez, a retiree living in Naucalpan, a suburb west of the capital. "They all made us promises, PRI, PAN already passed and we know how it was," she said, expressing confidence that it would be different with Morena in charge.

In Tlalnepantla de Baz, where old warehouses and industrial spaces have given way to apartment complexes north of the capital in recent years, Morena signs and flags were visible, as were those of the PAN and del Moral, but not the traditional ones of the PRI.

Benito Elizalde, who had retired from patching tires, had always voted for PRI, but this year said he supported Morena because it gave seniors a better pension.

His daughter, 35-year-old Claudia Elizalde, complained that parties had focused on offering more to retirees, like her father, rather than improving security or health.

Socorro Hern ndez was more focused on what the state election could mean on the national political stage. She said it was "very important" that she voted Sunday to show disagreement with L pez Obrador's party.

In Huehuetoca, also north of Mexico City, Alejandra Santillan Torres, a 29-year-old homemaker, said "the elections are important so that they take into account the workers."

She said she voted for the governing PRI, as she has in the past, because she felt they were doing well.

On Friday, the president said he hoped for a calm vote and was "very, very optimistic." His party is also viewed as the favorite in next year's presidential election. Even though it has not yet selected its candidate, it has a couple of strong possibilities and the opposition is generally considered to be in disarray.

Voters in the sparsely populated northern border state of Coahuila, where the PRI remains competitive, will also select a new governor Sunday. But even if the PRI holds on there, the loss of the State of Mexico could spell the end of its political relevance on a national stage, a stunning reversal for a party that ruled Mexico uninterrupted for seven decades.

Morena's national president Mario Delgado complained early Sunday that there was an operation of "persecution, harassment and intimidation" against the party's supporters in Coahuila. The state government responded in a statement that it was only carrying out normal security operations. (AP)