General Elections in Mexico
Mexican People Refuse Retrogression and Affirm Pro-Social Policies
Victory
rally in Mexico City, June 8, 2024 for President-elect
Claudia
Sheinbaum and Mayor-elect of Mexico City Clara Brugada,
both of whom ran for the Morena Party.
On June 2, over 60 per cent of Mexico's 99 million eligible voters went to the polls in the largest general election in Mexican history. More than 18,000 male and female candidates contested the elections, in which the country's next president was elected. Also up for renewal were the Congress of the Union, made up of 128 senators in the Senate, 300 elected deputies and 200 multi-member deputies in the Chamber of Deputies, the governors of eight of the 31 states that make up Mexico, the deputies of 30 of the country's 31 state congresses, the government of the capital Mexico City and its head, as well as thousands of local government positions such as mayors, governors and municipal councillors.
The president of the National Electoral Institute (INE), Guadalupe Taddei Zavala, announced at a press conference in the early hours of June 3 that Claudia Sheinbaum, the presidential candidate of the Let's Keep Making History (Sigamos Haciendo Historia) coalition formed by the Morena Party, the Labor Party (PT) and the Green Party, had won the presidential election.
On June 8, after all the vote counting and recounting procedures had been completed, the INE declared Claudia Sheinbaum elected with 59.76 per cent of the vote, or almost 36 million votes, far ahead of her closest rival who received 27 per cent of the vote. Claudia Sheinbaum is not only the first woman in Mexico's history to be elected president, but also the candidate with the most votes ever, even more than outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's 30 million in 2018 when he was the Morena candidate.
The rest of the results show a tidal wave for the Let's Keep Making History coalition in all the electoral contests. In Mexico City, another woman, Clara Brugada, was elected with 51 per cent of the vote, and Morena, the PT and Green Party coalition won 11 of the capital's 16 mayoralties. Of the eight states which elected governors, six were won by Morena and its allies, which will govern 24 of the country's 31 states. The dominance of Morena and its allies is also overwhelming in the Congress of the Union. In the Chamber of Deputies, the Let's Keep Making History coalition won a total of 374 of the 500 seats, giving it a two thirds majority, referred to as a qualified majority. In the Senate, the alliance won a total of 83 of the 128 seats to be filled, bringing it within one seat of a qualified majority. A qualified majority in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate is required for any changes to the country's constitution.
June 8 rally in Mexico
City
It should be noted that the highest percentages received by Morena and its allies were in the south where the López Obrador government has built most of its major projects including the 1,500-kilometre Maya train, a new oil refinery, the Ismo de Tehuantepec inter-oceanic corridor, new airports and tourist circuits.
With these results, the conservative alliance coalition Strength and Heart for Mexico (Fuerza y Corazón por México), formed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the National Action Party (PAN) and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) was the big loser in these elections. The PRI, which governed the country for over 70 years, slipped to fourth place while the PRD, which failed to obtain the required three per cent of the national vote, disappeared as a registered party.
The new president-elect has declared that her government's priority will be to continue and expand social programs, including economic assistance for all women aged 60 to 64, universal scholarships for all levels of education, and consolidation of the health care system, with free care and medicines throughout the country. It will also pursue a policy of energy sovereignty, modernization of ports and railroads, electoral reform and reform of the justice system. Beyond the pursuit of what are called welfare policies, the new government will face enormous pressure from the international financial oligarchy as well as from the U.S. imperialists to leave foreign domination of the country's natural resources untouched. Over 25 per cent of Mexico's territory is covered by mining concessions, 90 per cent of which are owned by foreign companies. There are currently 11 conflicts in the mining sector, some of which have been going on for decades. One of the most coveted resources is lithium. Although the Mexican government has nationalized the extraction and processing of this resource, control of its distribution is in the hands of the U.S. imperialists, who want to seize it for military production. There are over 3,800 concessions for the extraction of drinking water in Mexico, the vast majority of them held by large international corporations which care little about leaving an ever-growing percentage of the population without access to this life-sustaining resource.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government's inhumane immigration policies have effectively turned Mexico into the third largest immigrant-receiving country in the world.
Although the Morena government has adopted and defended a foreign policy of non-interference and mutual respect with other countries, a policy it scrupulously applies when opposing the blockade against Cuba, or the coup d'état in Peru or Bolivia and elsewhere in Latin America, the pressure it is under can be clearly seen in its much more questionable positions of neutrality with regard to the conflict in Ukraine or the genocide of the Palestinian people.
This article was published in
Volume 54
Number 38 - June 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS54389.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca