The term "tsunami" was used throughout the Mexican press on Monday, June 3, to describe the victory of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), the political party founded just 10 years ago by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (known as "AMLO") and the woman who will succeed him in October, Claudia Sheinbaum, elected on Sunday with 59.3% of the vote. The country's new electoral map on the day after the election shows the virtual disappearance of the opposition and almost complete left-wing dominance.
Firstly, for the presidency, Claudia Sheinbaum won in 31 of the country's 32 states, except in the small state of Aguascalientes, where her right-wing opponent, Xochitl Galvez, won by a narrow margin. The new head of state achieved the best score for the executive branch since 1988.
In Congress, the victory was unprecedented, giving Sheinbaum a very wide margin for maneuver. According to still-provisional results, the alliance between Morena, the Labor Party (PT, Social Democrat) and the Greens (PVEM) would win a two-thirds majority in the Chamber of Deputies, with between 345 and 380 seats, almost 50 more elected than in the last elections in 2018. In the Senate, Morena and its allies could also win a qualified majority, with 76 to 88 senators elected.
"It's likely that the left will have a qualified majority, as Morena has already succeeded in the past in convincing opposition senators to come over to their side," said Azul Aguilar, professor of political science at the Jesuit University of Guadalajara (ITESO). "This means that checks and balances are greatly weakened and that the government will be able to pass all constitutional reforms without having to negotiate with the opposition."
In February, president AMLO sent Congress a package of 20 constitutional reforms covering a wide range of subjects. Some were environmental and economic in nature, such as the ban on hydraulic fracturing to extract energy resources, the prohibition of transgenic corn and the reclamation of 18,000 kilometers of railroads, given in concession to the private sector over the past 25 years.
Another set of reforms aimed to ensure that the minimum wage rises above inflation and to make permanent the social benefits created by his government, such as the minimum pension and agricultural support programs.
The most controversial reforms concerned the judiciary and the legislature. The president wants to reduce the number of MPs (from 500 to 300) and senators by half (from 128 to 64). He has proposed that Supreme Court judges be appointed by popular vote, rather than by a meritocratic system. He also wants to reduce the budget of the National Electoral Institute (INE), responsible for organizing elections. While Sheinbaum defended reforms relating to the social and environmental agendas, she said little about those concerning institutions, even though Mexicans have recently shown their willingness to defend the Supreme Court or the INE.
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