Mexico votes for party majority
Critics depict election as limiting democracy
MEXICO CITY — Mexicans went to the polls Sunday to elect the entire lower house of Congress, almost half the country’s governors and most mayors in a vote that will determine whether President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena party gets the legislative majority it needs to continue his “Fourth Transformation” of Mexico.
López Obrador’s critics have depicted the elections as a chance to stop the still-popular president from concentrating more power and weakening checks and balances.
The president says the opposition is dominated by conservatives who oppose his campaign against corruption and wasteful spending.
López Obrador has complained about courts and independent regulatory agencies that have blocked some of his tougher proposals to empower state-owned industries. Opponents fear that if he wins a majority, he may try to subjugate courts and regulatory agencies created during Mexico’s decades-long transition to full democracy.
Mexico City housewife Dolores Martinez said she was pleased with López Obrador’s anti-corruption fight, after decades of corrupt administrations.
But other voters said they were disappointed by López Obrador. “The pandemic was poorly managed,” said Teresita Loza, 53, who waited in line to vote with her daughter, Sara Loza, 33. Loza said the president’s programs had handed out money but hadn’t created results.
As for much of the campaign, violence marked the days leading up to the vote. On Saturday, an employee of the state prosecutors’ office in Chiapas who was not authorized to be quoted said five people who were carrying voting material to polling places were ambushed and killed on a rural highway. Those killed appeared to be volunteers, not government employees.
Three dozen candidates, mostly for local posts, have been killed to date, and on Friday, a government electoral agency worker was shot to death in Tlaxcala state, near Mexico City.
Fifteen of the country’s 32 state governorships are at stake and all 500 seats in the lower house of Congress. Almost 20,000 local posts including mayors and town council seats are being decided in 30 states