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News > Latin America

Leftist Morena Party Gains Ground in Mexico City

  • Morena, which is led by the two-times former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, will govern for more than 8 million people and will administrate more than 550 million dollars.

    Morena, which is led by the two-times former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, will govern for more than 8 million people and will administrate more than 550 million dollars. | Photo: Morena

Published 9 June 2015
Opinion

The leftist political party led by the two-times former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will govern in areas representing more than 8 million people.

Mexico's National Regeneration Movement which participated for the first time in Sunday's mid-term elections, has already won in six of the 16 districts of Mexico City, breaking the long-time hegemonic rule of the once popular Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) in the country's capital, which won five.

The leftist political party, also known as Morena, led by the two-times former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, will govern in areas representing more than 8 million people and will administer more than US$550 million annually.

It will oversee the country's fifth economy, the Cuauhtemoc electoral district, which generates about 21 percent of Mexico’s GDP that has nearly 2.5 million people.

Morena will also govern in Tlalpan, Xochimilco and Tlahuac, which are considered rural, and Azcapotzalco which is an important industrial sector in Mexico City.

“Morena, the first political force in Mexico City. Thanks to the free, conscious and incorruptible citizens of the country's capital,” said Lopez Obrador on Twitter

However it seems to be a bittersweet victory for the leftist leaders in Mexico, especially after the ruling Revolutionary Institutional Party retained a slim working majority in the lower house of Congress in an election that was reported as the most violent in decades.

Ballot-burning incidents were reported in several restive states in southern Mexico in an attempt to boycott the vote.

With almost all votes counted Morena is Mexico’s fourth strongest political group, with between 34-40 lawmakers in the Congress.

The PRD - which lost its popularity after 43 students were forcibly disappeared last September in the state of Guerrero - will continue governing in six districts of Mexico City, meanwhile the conservative PAN won two and ruling PRI and its allies won in three districts.

Mexico's latest midterm elections had the highest turnout registered in years, about 48 percent, and, for the first time in the country’s history, an independent candidate won a governor post.  

The elections were also considered a test of President Enrique Peña Nieto's popularity given the widespread social unrest over the corruption scandals, a lackluster economy and human rights concerns that have prominent his three-year-old government.

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