Mexico President Upbeat Despite Election Setback

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday his ruling coalition was on course to retain its control of the lower house, despite a setback in legislative elections he called “free and fair.”

Initial results indicated that Lopez Obrador’s Morena party lost the absolute majority it held in the lower house of Congress, complicating his promised “transformation” of the country.

But he struck an upbeat tone, noting that together with its political partners, Morena was still projected to hold more than half the seats.

The vote was seen as a referendum on Lopez Obrador’s more than two years in office overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic and cartel-related violence.

Dozens of politicians were murdered in the months leading up to the polls for the lower house of Congress, 15 of 32 state governors and thousands of local politicians.

On the eve of the elections, gunmen killed five people helping to organize voting in southern Mexico, while two human heads were left at polling stations in the border city of Tijuana on election day.

A quick initial vote count suggested Lopez Obrador’s Morena party alone was set to take between 190 and 203 of the 500 seats in the lower house, the National Electoral Institute said.

Lopez Obrador was elected in 2018 for a term of six years, vowing to overhaul Mexico’s “neoliberal” economic model, root out corruption and end profligacy by a privileged elite.

But his presidency has been largely dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, which has left more than a quarter of a million people dead in Mexico and devastated the economy.