MEXICO CITY _ Mexicans voted Sunday in national elections that were widely expected to result in a profound shift in the country's political direction.
Police were out in force near voting booths set up in the capital and elsewhere. During the campaigns, dozens of candidates were killed, mostly in provincial areas where organized crime is in control.
Polls showed a seemingly insurmountable 20-point lead for presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who ran under the banner of his own political party, the National Regeneration Movement, known as Morena.
The movement began four years ago after Lopez Obrador _ a veteran politician and former mayor of Mexico City _ split from the center-left party that he once headed.
Lopez Obrador's election could result in a sea change in Mexican politics, experts say, and also could affect Mexico's relations with the United States.
Lopez Obrador, who lost the past two presidential elections, has championed a leftist, populist agenda that has resonated in a nation where many are fed up with corruption, rising crime and a slumping economy.
The political maverick has vowed to smash "the mafia of power," his depiction of the elite clique of political parties and business interests that have long dominated Mexico. His anti-status quo message has overwhelmed similar vows of "change" from the presidential aspirants from more traditional parties.
"We are struggling," said Ivan Jaramillo, 36, a tall, tattooed industrial engineer and Lopez Obrador backer who cast his ballot Sunday in the same district as the presidential aspirant he supports. "Yet we see how our leaders get richer."
Lopez Obrador was mobbed by journalists and supporters as he cast his ballot Sunday morning in Coyoacan, on the south side of Mexico City.
In the wealthy Mexico City enclave of Bosques de las Lomas, Veronica Soto stepped into a waiting Audi sedan after casting her ballot.
Soto said she was voting for Ricardo Anaya, the presidential candidate of the National Action Party, largely because she is afraid of a Lopez Obrador presidency _ a fear especially common among upper-class Mexicans.
Lopez Obrador's nationalistic outlook and misgivings about market-oriented reforms are signs "that he wants to turn Mexico into Venezuela," said Soto, echoing a common criticism here.
"He wants to take Mexico backward," she said, "to a situation where the poor won't be rich and the rich won't be rich either."
Lopez Obrador has consistently rejected opposition characterizations of him as Mexico's version of Hugo Chavez _ the late Venezuelan leftist leader and longtime U.S. antagonist. Lopez Obrador has said he favors a new free-trade agreement with the United States and has reassured business interests that he will protect investments.
For almost a century, Mexican presidents have come either the long-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which emerged from the Mexican Revolution to rule the country in autocratic fashion for more than seven decades; and the center-right National Action Party, which won the presidency from the PRI in elections 2000 and 2006.
The current president, Enrique Pena Nieto, standard-bearer of the PRI, was barred by term limits from running for re-election. His time in office has been widely seen as ineffective, and he has had historically low approval ratings.
The seemingly inevitability of Lopez Obrador's victory has left the principal candidates from Mexico's traditional parties _ the PRI and the National Action Party _ in what many here have called a race for second place.
The PRI candidate, Jose Antonio Meade, 49, a lawyer and Yale-educated economist, was named the ruling party nominee even though he was not a party member. The idea was to put forward a candidate not tarnished with the PRI's history of corruption and the current administration's legacy of ineffectiveness. The plan doesn't appear to have worked.
Meade, a prototypical technocrat with a broad grasp of the issues, has shown little spark and seems to lack political charisma. His "All for Mexico" coalition, led by the PRI, could be headed for a humiliating third-place finish, despite the massive resources of the PRI, its considerable get-out-the-vote expertise and the party's legendary proficiency at what is referred to here as electoral "alchemy" _ the ability to transform losing candidates into winners through various unsavory means, like ballot-box stuffing and a large turnout of cemetery-dwellers.
Anaya, the right-center National Action Party candidate, failed to gain traction after an early debate performance seemed to bolster his standing.
Allegations of money-laundering _denied by the candidate _ appear to have hurt Anaya. His upper-class background, bossy disposition and often-acerbic campaign tactics don't appear to have endeared him to the multitudes of mostly poor and working-class Mexican voters.
Also Sunday, Mexicans were to elect a new lower-house Chamber of Deputies, 128 members of the Senate and for thousands of state and municipal officials.
