There are more than 20,000 seats available, according to Mexico’s electorate, while about 95 million people can vote.
Ballot boxes have opened in Mexico, where thousands of seats at the local, state and national levels are within reach of what has been described as the largest vote in the country’s history.
Sunday’s midterm elections will determine the composition of the 500-seat House of Representatives, the lower house of Congress, as well as 15 governments and thousands of mayor and local councilor positions.
The National Electoral Institute of Mexico (INE) said more than 20,000 seats are being contested, while nearly 95 million people are eligible to vote.
The run-up to Sunday’s election was marked by widespread violence, with security consultancy Etellekt, which reported that at least 89 politicians, including 35 candidates, died in more than 200 campaign days.
“What will mark this election is the violence that arose mainly against opponents in state governments or municipalities,” the firm’s director, Ruben Salazar, told Al Jazeera before the election.
“What we are witnessing here is political violence, which involves being part of the opposition [you will be] with more risk in this country “.
A municipal candidate in eastern Veracruz, in the east of the country, was fatally shot in the night between Friday and Saturday, his political party said.
“We strongly condemn the cowardly assassination of René Tovar, candidate for mayor of Cazones de Herrera, Veracruz,” he tweeted to Clemente Castañeda, national coordinator of the left-wing Citizen Movement, who urged the government to “guarantee the life and security of Mexicans during the elections ”.
Although Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, widely known as AMLO, will not participate in the vote, his left-wing party Morena and his allies are seeking to strengthen support.
A good result in the Chamber of Deputies is especially important for AMLO, as it tries to carry out several important political promises in its remaining three years in office.
Elected in 2018 for a six-year term, the president’s party at the time won two-thirds of the seats in the House of Representatives.
