Mexico: Lopez Obrador’s party expects big victories in June 6 vote Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador News

Mexican voters will go to the polls on June 6 to vote in what has been called the biggest election in the nation’s history, and President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador hopes to support his left-wing Morena party.

The midterm elections will decide the appearance of the 500-seat House of Representatives, the lower house of Congress. Also worth mentioning are the more than 2,100 mayors and city councilors, along with 30 state legislators and 15 governors in the state.

While Lopez Obrador, popularly known by the initials AMLO, will not be voting, the contest will determine whether Morena and his allies will hold a two-thirds majority needed to make constitutional changes – and set the path for a popular but polarizing country. The Mexican president has been in office for three years.

“The biggest part of the political redistribution in Mexican history is the biggest happening in Lopez Obrador’s tenure,” said political analyst Lorena Becerra and head of public opinion research for Mexico City’s Reformation newspaper.

“A big part [Lopez Obrador’s] the strength in the second half of the term will depend on the outcome of these central elections, ”Becerra told Al Jazeera.

‘Worse than three years ago’

Experts say the nation’s high crime rate, slow economy, recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and government corruption are the main problems facing voters in the election. Many will also consider AMLO’s album since he took office in 2018.

The president shook the political status quo when he received 53% support elections that year, Making a wave of grief with traditional Mexican festivals. Calling its plan the “Fourth Transformation” of the country, the AMLO promised to improve the lives of the poor, eradicate corruption and heal the country through the violence of uncontrolled gangs.

Since then, his supporters, who are largely older and among Mexico’s poorest classes, have been credited with raising the minimum wage, creating scholarships for students and creating training programs for young people, and expanding benefits for the elderly and people with disabilities.

But over the past three years, observers have said that the issues made by Lopez Obrador have not improved. The Mexican economy shrank by 8.5% last year, and in 2019 more than 35,000 homicides were reported, in the first year of the AMLO, and it set a new record. The homicide rate was virtually unchanged in 2020, and the trend continued in the first quarter of 2021.

The election itself has suffered violence. According to Etellekt consulting firm, including 88 politicians 34 candidates – There have been killings since the start of the election season last September.

Friends have mourned the death of mayoral candidate Alma Barragan, who was shot dead on May 26 in Moroleo, Guanajuato, during a campaign event. [Armando Solis/AP Photo]

Lopez Obrador’s administration has also accused him of ill-treatment coronavirus pandemic refusing to allocate enough funds to address public health stops According to data from Johns Hopkins University, the disease has reached the country with the fourth highest death rate in the world.

“It would be hard to find anyone who says they are better off in Mexico than before the AMLO came to power,” said Christopher Wilson, a fellow general at the Wilson Institute at the Wilson Center, a U.S.-based tanker.

“The state of the earth is bad and it’s worse than it was three years ago.”

Public support

Still, AMLO remains a popular leader.

The recent surveys show Six out of 10 Mexicans support the president. He is also a main character who appears in the headlines of his favorite platforms on the daily news “mananera” who pushes his ideas and rivals against his rivals in his daily morning press conference.

“We have polarized electors, one in favor of the president and his party, and the other who is not only a party member of the traditional parties, but also against the president’s project,” said Alejandro Moreno, head of the popular referendum. In the newspaper El Financiero.

“However, there is a third category of voters who are disillusioned with the president and his party, but are not ready to return to the traditional parties – that is the market of the Movimiento Ciudadano,” Moreno told Al Jazeera.

Recent national polls show the president’s MORENA party with about 40% of the electorate in the House of Representatives with a priority party. [Ginnette Riquelme/AP Photo]

The Movimiento Ciudadano or Citizens ’Movement Party has been able to make some progress by positioning itself as the third party and is voting at 6 per cent.

But last national surveys suggested that President Morena’s Party holds about 40 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives, and according to a recent poll by the Mexican newspaper El Universal, Morena will win 228 seats in the lower house, compared to the current 253.

That, along with the 94 joint seats that the party’s current allies, the Green Party and the Labor Party, will get, would give 322 seats to the History We Make Together, 334 shy people needed for two-thirds. majority.

They are followed by three traditional Mexican parties, despite being ideologically opposed, and once bitter rivals formed a coalition called Forward for Mexico (Va por Mexico).

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled uninterruptedly for 71 years until 2000, now supports about 17 percent, while the Party of the Right National Action (PAN) holds 16 percent.

Supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador are waiting ahead of the Ecatepec campaign rally in Mexico [File: Moises Castillo/AP Photo]

‘Morena can only win’

Meanwhile, the governors ’race will be crucial for Lopez Obrador, said Carlos Peterson, Mexico’s chief analyst with the Eurasia Group, because governors control the state’s budget. It would give the president’s party a big advantage before the 2024 general election.

These gains would “facilitate what Lopez Obrador wants to do, by relieving pressure from governments to demand resources or against his plans,” Peterson told Al Jazeera. “Morena can only win from these elections.”

Today, Morena’s governors control six of Mexico’s 32 states, but of the 15 government races that will be held in Sunday’s vote, only one party governs: Baja California. The party has a leader in at least seven states, according to recent polls, and is competitive in many others. Some analysts have predicted that it could earn as much as 11.

MORENA is the leader in at least seven governor races, according to recent polls, and is expected to be competitive in several other states [File: Marco Ugarte/AP Photo]

Moreno of the newspaper El Financiero said that Morena is likely to lose in the states of Queretaro, Baja California Sur and Chihuahua, competing in Michoacan, Sonora and Campeche.

But all eyes are on the House of Representatives. If Morena doesn’t get a majority, Lopez Obrador will be forced to negotiate with rivals to pass legislation, and he has shown little willingness to do so far.

Among the next plans, AMLO wants to renovate the national energy sector, build an $ 8.9 billion oil refinery in its state of Tabasco, and complete construction Mayan train project, and increased growth in pensions over the next three years for those 65 and older.

To fund this agenda, Lopez Obrador will have to approve the country’s 2022 budget – a task for the nation’s lower house.

“He’s had a lot of freedom so far,” Peterson said. “It will allow him to limit the election results or continue to do what he wants.”