Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

Mexico President Appears to Hold Key Majority in Elections

Mexico President Appears to Hold  Key Majority in Elections

MEXICO CITY — President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s party and its allies appeared poised to maintain their majority in Mexico’s lower chamber of the congress, according to initial results.
Electoral authorities released “quick count” results based on voting samples that allow estimates of the voting trends to determine the rough potential makeup of the Chamber of Deputies late Sunday.
López Obrador’s Morena party will have to rely on votes from its allies in the Workers Party and Green Party, but together they were expected to capture between 265 and 292 seats in the 500-seat chamber. Morena alone was expected to win 190 to 203 seats.
That would signal a significant decline for the president’s party. In the current congress, Morena has a simple majority, holding 253 seats on its own. It would also deprive the president of a qualified majority of two-thirds required to approve constitutional reforms.
The opposition alliance made up of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, National Action Party and Party of the Democratic Revolution were estimated to win between 181 and 213 seats. Those would be gains for those parties, which have often appeared rudderless in the face of López Obrador’s popularity.
Even without López Obrador on the ballot, the mid-term elections were seen by many as a referendum on his administration and his ability to continue what he calls the “Fourth Transformation” of Mexico. Turnout was high for mid-term elections, edging above 51% of eligible voters.
López Obrador’s critics had depicted the elections as a chance to stop the still-popular president from concentrating more power and weakening checks and balances. The president said the opposition is dominated by conservatives who oppose his campaign against corruption and wasteful spending.
López Obrador has complained about courts and independent regulatory agencies that have blocked some of his tougher proposals to empower state-owned industries. Opponents warned that if he won a majority, he might try to subjugate courts and regulatory agencies created during Mexico’s decades-long transition to full democracy.
After polls closed, Lorenzo Córdova, president of the National Electoral Institute, declared the election a success. He said only 30 of more than 130,000 polling places across the country were not able to open due to a variety of circumstances.
Half of those unopened polling places were in the southern state of Oaxaca where voting materials were stolen or damaged, institute Executive Secretary Edmundo Jacobo said Sunday night.
Representatives of the major parties speaking at the electoral institute’s general council meeting applauded the conduct of Sunday’s vote amid the pandemic, despite noting that the run-up to voting was one of the most violent in recent times.

As for much of the campaign, violence marked the days leading up to the vote. On Saturday, an employee of the state prosecutors’ office in Chiapas who was not authorized to be quoted said five people who were carrying voting material to polling places were ambushed and killed on a rural highway. Those killed appeared to be volunteers, not government employees. (AP)