Voters in Mexico will head to the polls on June 2, 2024, when they will select the country’s next president, all 500 members of the Chamber of Deputies, all 128 members of the Senate, 9 governors, local legislators in all 32 federal entities, and thousands of local officeholders. With more than 20,000 positions being contested nationwide, June’s general election will be the largest in Mexico’s history.

The presidential election’s top contenders are both women, all but ensuring that the country’s first woman president takes office on October 1. Leftist incumbent Andrés Manuel López Obrador, founder of the ruling National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), is constitutionally prohibited from seeking a second term. Former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, the candidate for the MORENA-led Let’s Keep Making History (SHH) coalition, has maintained a comfortable lead in polling over former senator Xóchitl Gálvez, who leads the ticket for the Broad Front for Mexico (FAM) opposition alliance. Former congressman Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the center-left Citizens’ Movement remains in a distant third place.

López Obrador has dominated Mexican politics as president, and his governing legacy is expected to hang heavily over the election. In February, López Obrador, who remains widely popular, introduced a series of reforms meant to foreground MORENA’s election platform. The reforms, most of which would require significant constitutional amendments, include controversial proposals to significantly reduce the number of seats in Congress, provide for the direct election of Supreme Court justices, and eliminate seven independent regulatory bodies, including the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) and the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information, and Personal Data Protection (INAI). Analysts have criticized the reform package for targeting autonomous institutions and potentially undermining checks and balances within the country’s political system. While it remains unclear whether Sheinbaum will depart from López Obrador’s positions on other key issues, she has indicated her support for the president’s proposals.

Even before introducing the reform package, López Obrador and his allies have tried to weaken the National Electoral Institute (INE), Mexico’s independent electoral body, over several years. In separate rulings in May and June 2023, the Supreme Court struck down a controversial electoral law—known as “Plan B”—that would have reduced the INE’s budget and diminished its ability to guarantee free and fair elections. “Plan B” prompted major protests upon its initial passage last February. In February 2024, after López Obrador proposed his most recent reform package, protesters marched nationwide to object to the electoral-law changes contained within.

Freedom in Mexico also remains under serious threat from ongoing criminal violence. While Mexico has been a competitive electoral democracy since 2000, with power routinely changing hands between political parties, organized criminal groups exert significant influence in much of the country. June’s general election may play a pivotal role in how the government addresses this threat over the next six years.

Mexico has a score of 60 out of 100 on Freedom House’s Election Vulnerability Index, where 100 represents the most resilience to digital election interference. The score reflects an environment where competitive elections are held regularly, but where institutional shortcomings, entrenched criminal violence, and a weak rule of law pose significant challenges.

Freedom House has identified the following as key digital interference issues to watch ahead of election day:

• Information manipulation: Under López Obrador, coordinated online networks have been found to spread progovernment narratives and launch coordinated smear campaigns against the president’s perceived rivals. Investigative researchers have also documented the López Obrador administration’s apparent efforts to use public resources to manipulate online discourse, amounting to an “official propaganda apparatus.” False and misleading information has already spread in relation to the election. After Gálvez announced her campaign in 2023, MORENA supporters shared a Facebook video that used clips from a López Obrador press conference to misrepresent Gálvez’s position on federal pensions. Online content has also been manipulated to make false claims about López Obrador and Sheinbaum. In February 2024, a network of YouTube channels was revealed to have shared unsubstantiated claims linking López Obrador and Sheinbaum to organized crime. These tactics may become more prominent as the campaign continues, potentially distorting the online information sphere and making it more difficult for voters to find reliable information ahead of polling day.
• Harassment and violence: Mexico remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, particularly those who cover organized crime and other politically sensitive issues. Throughout his term, López Obrador has regularly used his morning press conferences to harass members of the press. At a February 2024 press conference, López Obrador publicly revealed the personal phone number of a journalist who had reported on US efforts to examine alleged ties between the president’s allies and drug cartels. Political candidates also face lethal violence. As of mid-February, at least 17 candidates contesting the June elections had reportedly been murdered. More killings have occurred since; in late February, two mayoral candidates—one belonging to MORENA and the other to the opposition National Action Party (PAN)—were shot and killed in the city of Maravatio. Criminal groups often use social media to threaten and intimidate critics. Additionally, women candidates are frequently subjected to online threats or harassment: During the 2018 elections, at least 62 women candidates faced online mistreatment, ranging from discriminatory statements to the nonconsensual sharing of intimate images and, in some cases, stalking.
• Arrests and prosecutions: In Mexico, threats of both criminal and civil legal action are frequently issued in response to online allegations about public corruption and wrongdoing. While defamation and slander have been decriminalized at the federal level since 2007, a small number of states maintain criminal penalties for these offenses, which could lead to the arrest and detention of journalists and other critical commentators in those areas. Other journalists have been targeted with potentially costly civil lawsuits. In April 2023, Pío López Obrador, one of the president’s brothers, sued journalist Carlos Loret de Mola and his digital outlet, Latinus, for a combined 400 million pesos ($24 million) after Loret de Mola published videos that appeared to show Pío illicitly accepting cash. The threat of criminal or civil lawsuits may encourage self-censorship online and discourage critical reporting about political candidates and public officials.
• Content removal: State and nonstate actors have increasingly used legal threats and other methods to pressure social media platforms and individual users to remove content in recent years. A recent civil society investigation found that the INE has engaged in the “systematic and widespread use” of precautionary measures to order the removal of online content since 2016. While such measures have been used to remove speech that is not protected under international human rights standards, the investigation found that political criticism was often removed. Authorities may issue more of these orders amid the fraught electoral environment. 

The country is rated Partly Free in Freedom in the World 2024, with a score of 60 out of 100 with respect to its political rights and civil liberties, and Partly Free in Freedom on the Net 2023, with an internet freedom score of 62 out of 100. To learn more about these annual Freedom House assessments, please visit the Mexico country reports in Freedom in the World and Freedom on the Net.