Once A Candy Seller, Xóchitl Gálvez Now Running For Mexico President

Xóchitl Gálvez is one of Mexico's top businesswomen, a computer engineer, and a candidate for the 2024 Presidential elections. Contesting from the conservative three-party coalition, she is set to take on former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, the frontrunner for leftist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's Morena party. The 60-year-old comes from an indigenous background and grew up poor in the central state of Hidalgo. As her father was an 'abusive alcoholic', she sold street food and candy to sustain a living, she told the Associated Press.

From Growing Up Poor To Running For President

Xóchitl Gálvez moved to Mexico City at the age of 16 and she started working as a call centre agent before securing a scholarship to study computer engineering at the reputed National Autonomous University of Mexico. She obtained then worked at the University's College of Engineering as a research assistant

A few years into her computer engineering degree, Gálvez started working as a programmer and later as a systems analyst at the National Institute of Geography and Statistics (INEGI). From 2000 to 2006, she was head of the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples, during the administration of Vicente Fox.

Gálvez is also an entrepreneur, who founded High Tech Services and OMEI. She has garnered several accolades for her work in business, technology, and philanthropy, including the Sé Líder Foundation award and the Zazil award. She has also been named one of the "100 Global Leaders of the World's Future" by the World Economic Forum (1999).

She entered politics in 2010 when she ran for governor of Hidalgo as a candidate for the 'Hidalgo Unites Us' coalition, made up of the National Action Party, the Party of the Democratic Revolution, the Labor Party, and Convergencia. Gálvez came in second place, with 47% of the votes in her favour.

In the 2015 Federal District elections, Gálvez won 32% of the votes and became the mayor of Miguel Hidalgo borough. She served from 1 October 2015 to 15 March 2018. In August 2023, she was announced as the face of the Opposition candidate running for President of Mexico. Claudia Sheinbaum or Gálvez could be the first woman President of the country.

Gálvez is known for her vibrant clothing, chirpy demeanour, and colloquial language, which gathers the attention of Mexican youth. She is often found cycling around Mexico City and interacting with the masses. The Latin American country, witnessing an all-female Presidential face-off, is set to go to the polls in June.