Six keys to understanding the greatest elections in Mexican history

Next Sunday June 6, Mexico celebrates unpublished midterm elections since they are the most important in the history of the country and the result of which will decide the course of the second half of the mandate of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

This is why we present to you the six keys to elections whose campaign was marked by political tensions and violence against candidates.

1 .- What are we going to vote on?

Citizens are called to renew 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, where the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), led by López Obrador, and its allies have a comfortable majority to reform the Constitution.

As a result of political reform, there is also governorate elections in 15 of 32 states: Baja California, Baja California Sur, Campeche, Colima, Chihuahua, Guerrero, Michoacán, Nayarit, Nuevo León, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tlaxcala and Zacatecas.

In addition, they will be renewed 30 local congresses and those 1,900 municipalities. In total, they are at stake 20,415 positions, a figure never seen before.

2 .- How will you vote?

With 93.4 million Mexicans called to the polls these will be the elections with the highest electoral list in the history of the country.

Between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., polling stations across the country will be open, with 163,000 polling stations or stations and 1.5 million officials in charge of ballot logistics.

3 .- Who is competing?

The ruling Morena party participates in most elections through the Together We Will Make History coalition, along with its allies, the Labor Party (PT) and the Green Party (PVEM).

Its main rival is the unprecedented and eclectic opposition coalition “Va por México”, made up of the right-wing National Action Party (PAN), the once hegemonic Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). ) from the left.

The Liberal Citizen Movement (MC) and the new parties Progressive Social Networks (RSP), Solidarity Encounter (PES) and Force for Mexico (FxM) are going it alone.

4.- What do the polls say?

According to the polls, Morena is starting as a favorite in the elections to the Chamber of Deputies, where he could suffer some wear but would retain the absolute majority with his parliamentary partners.

López Obrador’s party is also the favorite in half of the states, such as Guerrero, where he had to replace his candidate, Félix Salgado Macedonio, accused of sexual abuse, due to financial irregularities, by his daughter, Evelyn Salgado.

The opposition is a favorite in traditionally conservative states like Querétaro or Chihuahua.

Where it seems like there isn’t much Morena can do is in the industrialized state of Nuevo León, the most populous of those at stake, where there’s a fight between Samuel García (MC) and Adrián de la Garza (PRI).

5.- How does violence affect these elections?

One more time, the countryside in Mexico was stained with blood for violence and organized crime, with at least 89 politicians murdered since September, including 35 candidates, according to the Council Etellekt.

they registered 782 attacks on politicians, surpassing the record number of 2018, in presidential, federal and local elections.

The OAS observer mission deployed to Mexico expressed “deep concern” at the violence, while the National Electoral Institute (INE) maintains that the election is not “in danger”.

6.- What role does the president play?

On this occasion López Obrador will not be at the polls, but he used his morning press conferences to criticize the opposition and supporting Morena, a party that bases its popularity on that of the president.

The National Electoral Institute (INE) came to warn López Obrador to campaign when the law prevents him from doing so, which the president called “censorship”.

During one of his lectures, López Obrador openly admitted that his “hand” was at the origin of the vote-buying complaint that the prosecutor’s office brought against the main opposition candidates in Nuevo León.

With information from the EFE

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