The campaign starts in five states stained by the 'Salgado Macedonio case' and a climate of violence

Félix Salgado Macedonio, in a pre-campaign event. Dassaev Téllez / CUARTOSCURO

A scandal that has not yet been resolved, the climate of violence and a struggle by all parties and coalitions against Morena, the movement of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The June 6 election campaign, which will renew the Chamber of Deputies and the governors of 15 of the 32 states, begins this Friday in five states marked by these factors.

However, the most pressing case that deflects the focus of the dispute is the one that affects Félix Salgado Macedonio, denounced for two rapes and accused of other cases of sexual abuse.

The politician, Morena's pre-candidate for the Guerrero government, has received unqualified support from the president and the training apparatus, but last week an internal guarantee committee forced a repeat of the internal poll to choose the candidate.

The veteran leader, who grew up in the ranks of the PRD together with López Obrador, appeared again and the party has not yet announced the result, which he has promised to abide by.

The electoral race, which in addition to Guerrero begins in Nuevo León, Colima, San Luis de Potosí, Colima and Sonora, begins on the eve of March 8 with a scandal of sexist violence that overshadows the political confrontation and the outcry of a large majority of the Mexicans who reject his candidacy.

In Guerrero, governed by a coalition between the PRD and the Green Party, everything revolves around the resolution of that case.

The decision of Morena, who in that state competes with a fragmented opposition with candidates from the PRI, the PAN or the Citizen Movement, will ultimately determine the campaign.

Seven out of ten people from Guerrero oppose the candidacy of Salgado Macedonio, according to a survey carried out by SIMO Consulting for EL PAÍS, and 54% of voters flatly rule out supporting him after learning of the accusations.

This rejection is, however, lower than that registered in the rest of the country, where it reaches 81%.

That is the main unknown of this start of the campaign, although the elections, the largest held in recent times, also pose other challenges for the country.

Mexico elects 20,000 public offices in June.

The voting of governors, deputies and mayors is held in a climate in which there has been a reduction in violence against politicians compared to 2018 data, by 32%, but there are still three months left for the elections.

The campaign in San Luis Potosí, for example, starts dyed red after the murder on Monday of the president of the employer, Julio César Galindo, shot outside a store in the capital.

A sample of the increasing presence of organized crime in the State.

Morena's contender will be Mónica Rangel, former Secretary of State for Health, chosen after a long and controversial internal process.

His rival in the name of the alliance Va por México, will be the PAN Octavio Pedroza Gaitán.

The elections are a decisive thermometer for Morena and López Obrador, who are heading towards the second half of the presidential term.

The ballot box will determine the acceptance of his political project and the margin of the opposition, which in recent years has failed to forge a powerful leadership.

One of Morena's biggest bets is played in Sonora, with the candidacy of Alfonso Durazo after leaving the Secretary of Security in October.

The northern state is a traditionally PRI fiefdom, where it only once lost the governorship at the hands of the PAN.

On this occasion, the Mexican right has joined forces with the tricolor party under the umbrella of the Va por México alliance.

The consensus candidate has been Ernesto Gándara Camou, who resigned from the PRI in November after 40 years of militancy and justified his decision on the importance of leading a "great citizen alliance."

Colima is another of the states where the PRI has never lost, which will also lead the candidacy of Va Por México with former senator Mely Romero.

In front will have Indira Vizcaíno, former deputy and former federal delegate, who starts with an advantage according to the first preliminary polls.

In the distribution of applications between the Va por México alliance, the PRI has obtained six candidates for governor: Campeche -whose campaign begins on March 29-, Colima, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tlaxcala and Zacatecas.

A distribution that coincides with practically all the states where the tricolor party is in power.

The PAN has been left with three: Baja California and Baja Sur and San Luis Potosí.

For just one of the PRD, Michoacán, the last stronghold of the traditional Mexican left party.

The arithmetic of the distribution has caused some surprise in the Mexican political lies by not being related to the latest electoral results.

In the 2018 presidential elections, the PAN obtained 2.3 million more votes than the PRI, which registered its worst historical result, remaining as the third largest force in the country with only 13% of the total.

Rather, the alliance responds to a strategic logic of ensuring the strongholds of each of the parties, which have kept the candidacies separately in Chihuahua, Querétaro and Nuevo León, historical fiefdoms of the PAN and the powder magazine of Guerrero, today in the hands of a PRI-Green Party alliance.

This Friday, the campaign - also marked by the covid-19 pandemic and a vaccination process so far uneven and with an uncertain calendar - also begins in Nuevo León, the state that contributes the most Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to the country after Mexico City and the State of Mexico.

In that territory, Morena is the formation that, on the other hand, concurs in coalition with the Green Party under the candidacy Together We Will Make History.

It will do the same in five other states to try to consolidate the project of the Fourth Transformation.

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