Mexico’s bittersweet elections | AMLO surpasses …

The midterm elections in Mexico had been proposed as a referendum between obradorismo and anti-obradorismo articulated in an alliance of anti-natural opposition between the PRI (center), the PAN (right) and the PRD ( center-left) called “Va Por México” which had set itself the objective of preventing the majority of Morena and her allies in the Chamber of Deputies.

In this sense, the obradorismo, made up of the party of López Obrador, Morena, and the Labor Party (PT), to which was added the pragmatic Green Ecologist Party (which in the 2000 presidential elections supported Vicente Fox of the PAN, and in 2012 and 2018 to Peña Nieto and Meade of the PRI), passed the referendum, since the sum granted by the National Electoral Institute (INE) to Morena and the PT is between 225 and 244 deputies, which would allow them to complete the simple majority in the House adding the 40-48 seats of the Greens. We are far, yes, from the qualified majority to reform the Constitution numbered in 333 seats, which during the last legislature the pro-government majority was able to achieve by negotiating with the small parties.

From then on, the obradorismo and its green ally will have a simple majority, but they will no longer be able to choose to negotiate the qualified majority since they will face between 181 and 213 opposition deputies, united as a block with the aim of making the parliamentary life impossible for the party in power. Between the two, the social democratic party Movimiento Ciudadano, which with a range of 20 to 27 deputies and deputies, aspires to become a third way, closer to the opposition than to obradorismo if we think of 2024.

The three newly created parties that were competing within the labor spectrum, Progressive Social Networks, Fuerza Por México and Encuentro Solidario do not reach the three percent required to maintain the register, and will not be in the presidential election of 2024.

But the partial decline of obradorismo in the Chamber of Deputies (Morena loses about fifty deputies against 253 currently and the simple majority alone, in addition to the impossibility of opting for the qualified majority) is compensated by the victory. in most of the governorates in dispute, between ten and eleven (Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sonora, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Colima, Michoacán, Guerrero, Tlaxcala, Campeche and Zacatecas). The PAN retains two very important states at the industrial level, Chihuahua and Querétaro, the Citizen Movement wins Nuevo León, the most economically important of those in conflict, and the Greens win San Luis Potosí, a state where it does not. There was no alliance and Morena was competing with his own candidate.

Mexico City, a vote of punishment

But in other states where there was no election for governor, there was a resounding punitive vote against Morena. The most important is Mexico City, seat of the federal government ruled by Claudia Sheinbaum, one of the presidential candidates called to succeed Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2024, and a historically progressive city already ruled by AMLO between 2000 and 2006. In Mexico City Elections have been held. took place for the 16 town halls that make up the city, where Morena has ruled 11 since 2018, and despite the fact that Morena’s leadership announced victory in 14 of the 16, the reality is that the 11 where she was ruled and obradorismo will rule 6-7 leaving the majority of them, 9-10, in the hands of the opposition coalition parties.

Beyond economic issues, it seems clear that there is a disaffection of the urban middle class and of the youth who, seeing no tangible benefit from the ongoing transformation process, have chosen to support the coalition of ‘opposition. The same is true in other important urban areas like Puebla, where Morena loses the capital that ruled until now, or Jalisco, where despite the mismanagement of the Citizen Movement, which governs the state and the capital, Morena n ‘was able to reach Guadalajara, nor its urban area Zapopan.

An early balance

Even if the results must be formalized, the results of the intermediate election leave a bittersweet flavor that must be analyzed far from any triumphalism or defeatism. From the obradorista point of view, we must superimpose three levels of analysis, a mediocre result in the Chamber of Deputies, a small decline compared to the previous legislature, aggravated by the punitive vote in urban areas like Mexico City, Puebla or Guadalajara, but compensated by the territorial advance which will allow Morena to govern half of the 32 states of the country and to counterbalance the majority of the opposition so far. On the other hand, it is not possible to demonstrate too much triumphalism, because if it will avoid any constitutional reform, and progress among the urban middle class, the PRI party, until now the majority in the territory, is shifting from government of four states to just one.

In summary, at a glance, until 2021, the workers’ office passes the test of the midterm elections, but receives a red flag and remains in a weaker position in the face of the presidential elections of 2024 without López Obrador as a candidate. For the general population, and despite the jolt of the picture represented by the electoral results, the cleavage of Obradorismo-anti-Obradorismo continues.