Mexico Votes Amid Political Polarization | …

From Mexico

Mexico’s June 6 midterm elections went relatively calmly across most of the territory. More than 95% of the polling stations have been set up and in some municipalities where organized crime colludes with politics, there have been incidents such as the theft, destruction or burning of electoral packages, in addition to the purchase of votes through pantries or in cash.

While waiting for the first results and projections, which will arrive from the National Electoral Institute (INE) in the early morning of Argentina, we can speak of a A very high participation which for the first time in an intermediary will exceed 50% of the electorate. Very high participation rate in the biggest elections in history with More than 20,000 positions in dispute, including 1,325 municipal presidencies, 500 federal councils and 15 of the country’s 32 governorates, ie half of the territorial power.

These elections are taking place in a climate of political polarization, a polarization that has continued for 3 years since the 2018 presidential campaign, and which turned the election into a referendum on López Obrador’s politics and government. In this sense, everything seems to indicate that the opposition has not achieved its objective since it seems that Morena and his allies (the Greens and the Labor Party) will retain the absolute majority in the Chamber of Deputies (251 deputies and 500 deputies).

Regarding the governorates, Morena President Mario Delgado announced at the start of election night that Morena has 8 assurances (Zacatecas, Guerrero Tlaxcala, Michoacán, Colima, Campeche, Nayarit and Sinaloa) which would grant the opposition 7, leaving a tie which would actually be a bad result for Morena, since a few months ago there were chances of victory in 14 of the 15 (all except the state of Querétaro, in the hands of the conservative right wing of the PAN).

But this scenario was reversed with a measure controversial or at least difficult to understand from an ideological point of view, but effective from an electoral point of view, like the union in coalition of the PAN (right), the PRI ( center) and PRD. (old left) until Morena arrives). The parties which supported the Pact of Peña Nieto for Mexico, which promoted privatizations, now joined the Va x México coalition with one explicitly stated objective: to confront workers at the polls.

Although the opposition coalition was able to compete in elections, the social, political and economic reality is dominated by the workers, that despite the loss of support from the urban middle classes, it broadens the electoral base with popular sectors historically excluded from the state, sectors which now benefit from allowances and social programs, especially the elderly.

All this in the midst of a pandemic from which Mexico is beginning to emerge, with a public policy that prioritized investments in beds, ventilators and doctors, to avoid the saturation that could be seen in other countries, and which made the North American country one of the 10 country in the world that receives the most vaccines. Last week, one million vaccines per day were achieved, for a total of over 34 million doses applied (Mexico has received over 43 million doses).

Electoral uncertainty

In the absence of official INE results, and as is customary on many election days, all political actors can say they have won, and they are partly right. Obradorismo represents more than half of the contested governorates, which with the 6 it already owns (Baja California, Chiapas, Mexico, Puebla, Tabasco and Veracruz) will give it control of 15-16 of the 32 of the Republic, leaving the other half in the hands of the opposition. And when it comes to the Chamber of Deputies, Morena and her allies are maintaining the legislative majority they already had, but it doesn’t look like they are getting any closer to the qualified majority (they did have) that would allow constitutional reforms.

Consequently, catastrophic link between obradorismo and opposition, facing the next 3 years facing the election of 2024 in a country without the possibility of presidential re-election and the formation of a kind of bipartisanship with 2 large blocs, obradorismo Green Ecologist and the Maoist PT) and the opposition (PRI-PAN with the PRD as satellite if 3% of the vote is reached, which would allow it to maintain the national electoral register).

In this election there were also 3 new parties from the labor sector in competition, Fuerza Por México, Redes Sociales Progresistas and Encuentro Solidario, which will barely reach the 3% that allows them to have a national register (they could add some single-member deputies in case of winning their district).

Therefore, an uncertain scenario, the one that opens in the Latin American country which, with Brazil, shares the G20 with Argentina.