CNN) — Mexican voters are heading to the polls Sunday in a historic election that could potentially reshape the country.
Voters will choose a new president and more than 3,000 other posts, including a new Congress, several governorships and municipal seats.
President Enrique Peña Nieto cannot run for re-election because presidents are limited to one six-year term.
Some 89 million people are eligible to vote in Sunday’s elections but millennial and the so-called Generation Z are expected to play a key role in defining the country’s future.
Younger voters grew up surrounded by rampant corruption and drug violence. They represent nearly half of all the eligible voters and nearly 13 million of them would be voting for the first time, electoral officials said.
The winner of Sunday’s presidential election doesn’t need the absolute majority of the vote to be elected, just the most votes among the four candidates.
The new president will take office on Dec. 1.
The candidates
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is one of four candidates in the race to become the 58th president of Mexico.
Lopez Obrador, 64, is the former mayor of Mexico City and began his political career as a member of ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), later joined the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution and more recently formed his own party,
Ricardo Anaya, 39, held multiple public office seats in the Mexican state of Queretaro and also served in the lower chamber of Congress.
Jose Antonio Meade, 49, is a politician but he’s never run for office.
Jaime Calderon Rodriguez, 60, is a former governor of the industrial state of Nuevo Leon.
This campaign season in Mexico has been particularly violent. In the nine months leading up to this weekend’s presidential election, at least 132 politicians have been killed, according to the consulting group Etellekt.
