Lopez Obrador claims victory in Mexico
Trump tweets congratulations to leftist leader
MEXICO CITY — Leftist populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador claimed victory in Mexico’s presidential election on Sunday, hours after his nearest rivals had conceded.
Lopez Obrador, who vowed to transform Mexico and oust the “mafia of power” ruling the country, rode widespread voter anger and discontent with the governing Institutional Revolution Party of President Enrique Pena Nieto. A so-called quick count by Mexico’s electoral institute about three hours after polls closed showed Lopez Obrador had more than 50 percent of the vote in the four-man race. Official results in all of Mexico’s races were not expected until early this morning.
“For the good of Mexico, I wish him the greatest success,” said Jose Antonio Meade, the Institutional Revolution Party candidate, in a televised speech late Sunday.
“The tendency favors Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador,” added conservative Ricardo Anaya, who was running with a right-left coalition. “I recog
nize his triumph.”
The fourth candidate, Jaime “El Bronco” Rodriguez, was an independent considered a long shot for the office.
Retired teacher Susana Zuniga was among the Lopez Obrador supporters who poured Sunday night into Mexico City’s sprawling main square, where the candidate had called on his backers to rally. She beamed and said the country was experiencing a moment similar to the Mexican Revolution a century ago.
“The people are fed up,” Zuniga said. “That is what brought us to this.”
U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted congratulations: “I look very much forward to working with him. There is much to be done that will benefit both the United States and Mexico!”
All the candidates in the race lambasted Trump’s policies against migrants and Mexico.
About 89 million Mexicans were eligible to vote Sunday to decide more than 3,400 local, state and federal posts — the most races ever contested on a single Mexican Election Day.
Lopez Obrador called to transform Mexico in his third bid for the presidency, pledging to govern for the poor and fight rampant corruption, give scholarships or paid apprenticeships to youth, and to increase support payments for the elderly.
“Now that he has won, he cannot fail this new generation that believes in him,” said Mariano Bartolini, a 29-year-old lawyer who voted for Lopez Obrador in the northwestern city of Tijuana, across the border from San Diego. “It is thanks to us young people who are supporting him that he was able to get more votes than he did in past elections.”
The new president’s term will start on Dec. 1.
Pena Nieto said late Sunday that he had congratulated Lopez Obrador on the race.
“The president of the republic and his government will be absolutely respectful and support the authorities that are elected,” Pena Nieto told reporters.
FEARS OF FRAUD
Hovering over the election was the specter of vote fraud, though electoral officials deny it was a possibility with the modern balloting technology and institutions now in place.
In both of Lopez Obrador’s previous two presidential losses, he alleged fraud. In his first loss — by a mere 0.56 percent to conservative Felipe Calderon in 2006 — his supporters held monthslong protests in Mexico City and he referred to himself as “the legitimate president.”
His allies were warning against any funny business.
“They shouldn’t dare commit a fraud, because if they do they will meet the devil,” said Yeidckol Polevnsky, president of Lopez Obrador’s National Regeneration Movement,
called the Morena party. “We will not accept it.”
The election was also the first time Mexicans living abroad could vote for down ballot races like senators. More than 181,000 received ballots, and the 97,000 that the National Electoral Institute had gotten back by Friday morning were already double what they got in 2012.
The head of the country’s electoral institute, Lorenzo Cordova, said voting proceeded “peacefully, without major incidents,” and that only four of the 156,807 polling places failed to open.
On Saturday, the Democratic Revolution party said four of its members were killed in Mexico State, west of Mexico City, while trying to prevent handouts of goods by the ruling party to potential voters.
In Michoacan state, polling places in a few villages were canceled after some inhabitants said they didn’t want elections involving political parties, which they mistrust. Some ballots were stolen and burned in the town of Nahuatzen to prevent voting.
The Mexico City government reported isolated problems such as polls opening late, 17 stations that ran out of ballots and the robbery of 583 ballots that were headed to a station in the borough of Iztapalapa.
Mexico state, which surrounds Mexico City on three sides, has traditionally been a stronghold of the Institutional Revolution Party, called the PRI, and it is also the home state of Pena Nieto. Such areas are seen as barometers for the shifting political mood in Mexico.
“The PRI has won here for many years, but this year it’s going to lose, because dissent is high,” Luis Valdepena Bastida, 51, said as he waited to cast his ballot.
Valdepena had voted for Lopez Obrador in the past two elections and planned to do the same Sunday. He said he was tired of daily murders and the poor education system.
“Voting is the only tool we have to ensure that this corrupt system changes,” he said. “The people are fed up.”
Others found Lopez Obrador’s promises for change unrealistic.
Keila Gonzalez Garcia, 33, said she was casting her vote for Anaya, because she felt his party would prevent a disastrous presidency.
“I’m voting for him to make sure the peje does not win,” she said, using Lopez Obrador’s nickname — a word for a type of fish that also means “clever one.” “He has a rose-tinted idea of the world, but I don’t think it’s possible. … Where is he going to get all the money for his plans?”
Information for this article was contribted by Christopher Sherman, Mark Stevenson, Peter Orsi, Maria Verza, Andrea Rodriguez and Nancy Moya of The Associated Press; by Joshua Partlow and Maya Averbuch of The Washington Post; and by Kirk Semple of The New York Times.