Mexico’s López Obrador says the election results will boost his project

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador celebrated Monday the results obtained in the mid-term elections held on Sunday because, in his opinion, they will allow him to continue with his transformation project.

“Two projects were voted for, different and opposed. Especially in the federal election, and I am very grateful because as a result of this election, the parties that sympathize with the transformation project that is underway will have a majority in the Chamber of Deputies,” said the President in a press conference at the National Palace.

This Sunday, more than 93 million Mexicans were called to vote in the largest elections in the country’s history. The entire Chamber of Deputies, 15 out of 32 governors, 30 local legislative assemblies, and more than 1,900 city councils were called renewed at the same time.

López Obrador’s party, Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena), managed to retain its majority in the Chamber of Deputies and remains the most voted political grouping. However, it lost its ability to reform the Constitution and will be more dependent on its allies.

At the beginning of his morning conference, the Mexican president considered that the electoral result “expresses a level, a degree of political maturity, rarely seen.”

“Or I could say never seen before because people voted, not only for a party, for a candidate, they voted for a project, in one direction or another,” he said.

He expressed his conviction that with most of his alliance in the Chamber of Deputies, “the budget will be guaranteed, and more specifically and in detail, a sufficient budget for the neediest, for the poor.”

“So thank you very much, thank you very much to all the people, to all those who participated in this election,” he stressed.

According to preliminary data, Morena obtained between 190 and 203 seats in the Lower House, a substantially lower figure than the 253 deputies it currently holds.

But if its result is added to that of its allies, the Labor Party (PT) and the Green Party (PVEM), it would manage to overcome the absolute majority barrier (251), with a range of between 255 and 292.

HISTORIC ELECTION

The President also thanked the people of Mexico for a day in which “the path towards democracy was reaffirmed.”

“And that is fundamental, the fact that differences can be settled through elections, through peaceful means. Yesterday a crucial step was taken, and it is a historic election, there have been few elections like yesterday’s,” he remarked.

He indicated that Sunday’s elections “were free” and “clean”, unlike “other times”.

“There were disturbances, there were interventions and interferences of local authorities, but unlike other times, the State did not intervene. They were not State elections like the ones that took place for decades and centuries in Mexico,” he remarked.

In these elections, López Obrador’s party also extended its territorial power with victory in most of the 15 states holding elections; however, it lost most of the local mayoralties in greater Mexico City, its main stronghold.