opposition defeats López Obrador in violent elections

Before the start of the count, the newspaper El Financiero predicted that Morena was beaten in the “crown jewel” of these elections, to renew the 500 seats in the lower house, 15 of the 32 governorates and 60% of the communes, among other positions. , although he could have obtained better results in regional and local votes.

According to this survey by the capital newspaper, The party with 40% of the votes in the elections to the Lower House and with its allies of the Greens (4%) and Labor (PT, left, 3%), would obtain 47% of the seats in this legislative body, that is to say -to say without reaching an absolute and less qualified majority (two-thirds) he held.

At the same time, the three main opposition forces would win 44% of the vote, divided at 21% for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI, center), 20% for National Action (PAN, right) and 3% for the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD, left), which have joined forces in numerous candidatures .

Everything therefore indicates that there would be a Chamber of Deputies divided practically in two, which presages serious difficulties for President Andrés López Obrador to obtain the approval of his current reforms, in particular constitutional ones.

The midterm elections in Mexico, to renew the Chamber of Deputies, half of the governorates and 60% of the communes, passed calmly and with a large influx of voters, without the authorities giving participation figures.

Scenes of violence

The elections were marred by a few violent incidents “in targeted areas” of the country, in the words of the president of the National Electoral Institute, Lorenzo Córdova, who prevented the installation of 30 polling stations, although no victims were recorded.

Nail human head was thrown this morning on a table in the Terrazas del Valle district of the northern city of Tijuana, local newspaper El Universal reported.

The man who threw him on foot and the rest of the victim’s body were found five blocks from where the head was laid, Baja California newspaper La Jornada reported.

As, a wooden box containing a head, two hands and two feet he was left on a table in another polling center, also in Terrazas del Valle, according to the newspaper.

Likewise, a cooler with a head was left in a polling center in the Mariano Matamoros neighborhood, on the outskirts of Puebla.

On the other hand, the National Electoral Institute (INE) reported the cancellation of 41 polling centers, 20 of which were not opened directly, due to various episodes of violence.

In the central state of San Luis Potosí, the local prosecutor’s office said it had opened several investigations for electoral offenses, including the case of an armed group that broke into a college in the capital, where they shot several gunfire and stolen ballot boxes. , without being reported victims, according to the ANSA news agency.

In Mexico State, two people were injured in a brawl in Valle de Chalco and 33 men were arrested in Naucalpan for carrying sticks and metal pipes as they went to the polls, and in Tuxtepec , Oaxaca, three people were assaulted, accused votes, according to El Universal.

Urn mouth

Unlike the election to the Lower House, the first exit results are very tight in the challenge of the 15 governorates.

El Financiero, practically the only one who carried out polls of this type, pointed out that only the state of Querétaro (neighbor of the capital) there is a clear result in the election of the governor by a difference of two to 1, so in the other 14 governorates “the coin is in the air.”

In two other states, Zacatecas (center) and Tlaxcala (southeast), there is a slight advantage of the Morena rule, but in other states the results are not very precise and make it impossible to establish a well-defined winner, especially in Campeche (south-east) and Nuevo Leon (north).

The absence of a difference in force in most of the 15 states (out of a total of 32) where the post of governor has been contested, which suggests that it will be the Electoral Tribunal that will have the last word in this controversy, generated a “war of triumphalist declarations” of the party leaders.

The ruling Morena party and the opposition parties Action Nationale (PAN, right) and Revolutionary Institutional (PRI, center), awarded results in most governorates, attributing them to their own polls.

This circumstance created an atmosphere of great confusion, but the only thing clear is that a long post-election conflict is looming, in the opinion of political analysts.

“Everything suggests that this is a very close election, where most of the elections in the states will not be defined today because there will be all kinds of appeals and challenges before the Electoral Tribunal, this which would delay the end result, ”he said. political scientist Jorge Castañeda.

“We won the qualified majority (two thirds) in Morena” in the Chamber of Deputies, which did not yield results, declared PRI leader Alejandro Moreno, who declared victory in the governorates of seven states.

In turn, PAN president Marko Cortés proclaimed victory in the governorates of Querétaro (neighboring the capital) and 5 other states in coalition with the PRI and the PRD.

Mario Delgado, the national leader of Morena, announced that, based on his own exit results, he had secured governor positions in at least nine states: Zacatecas, Guerrero (south), Tlaxcala and Michoacán (south), Campeche (southeast) and Colima (west), as well as Sinaloa (north), Nayarit (west) and Baja California (north).

The first official results from the National Electoral Institute (INE) based on a quick tally of a representative sample of electoral districts would be released at 11 p.m. local time (4 a.m. GMT on Monday). (ANSA).

More than 90 politicians murdered since September

The elections were held in a climate of violence after the murder of 91 politicians since last September, when the process has started. Among them, 36 were candidates or pre-candidates, mainly for municipal positions, according to consultancy firm Etellekt.

This escalation is part of the bloodbath the country has suffered since 2006, when the government of the day launched a military operation against the drug cartels.

In Guerrero (south), one of the most violent states in the country, members of a community civilian police force monitored the day.

“Those of organized crime come with the community leaders to divide the people, they do not let them vote as they think,” denounced Isaías Posotema, one of the group’s leaders in Chilapa.

The government attributes the majority of killings to drug traffickers seeking to expand their power.