The mostly leftist coalition led by president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador was the big winner in gubernatorial races yesterday, winning five of nine elections.
The Together We Will Make History coalition — led by López Obrador’s Morena party but also including the Labor Party (PT) and the conservative Social Encounter Party (PS) — was successful in Mexico City and four other states, all located to the south of the capital.
Tellingly, the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has been plagued by corruption scandals at both federal and state levels, didn’t win any of the nine states and appears to have lost the two it held.
In Mexico City, former Tlalpan borough chief Claudia Sheinbaum won almost 47% of the vote to easily beat runner-up Alejandra Barrales, who represented a right-left coalition made up of the National Action Party (PAN), the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) and the Citizens’ Movement Party (MC).
It is the first time that Mexico City has elected a female mayor. The Morena-led coalition also won mayoral races in 11 of 16 boroughs in the capital.
To Mexico City’s immediate south, the state of Morelos is set to be governed by former soccer star and current mayor of Cuernavaca, Cuauhtémoc Blanco.
Blanco won over 52% of the vote or four times that of his nearest rival, Víctor Manuel Caballero Solano, who represented an alliance made up of the PAN and the MC.
Blanco has frequently clashed with current Governor Graco Ramírez and says that after he takes office, he will investigate him for corruption.
In Veracruz, Morena candidate Cuitláhuac García Jiménez won almost 45% of the vote to defeat PAN candidate Miguel Ángel Yunes Márquez — the son of current Governor Miguel Ángel Yunes — by a narrower margin of around 5%.
In AMLO’s home state of Tabasco, Adan Augusto López Hernández won a commanding victory with 61% support. He was the only gubernatorial candidate who fared better at the polls than López Obrador, who won 53% in the presidential race.
In the southern state of Chiapas, Morena’s Rutilio Escandón Cadenas won almost 40% of the vote to practically double the support received by both the Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate and the Green Party candidate, who won 20% and 21% respectively.
Puebla was one of the four states where the Together We Will Make History coalition didn’t win but the race was close.
The candidate for the right-left coalition For Puebla In Front, Martha Ericka Alonso Hidalgo, won almost 38% of the vote to edge out Morena’s Luis Barbosa Huerta, who won 34%. Alonso’s husband, Rafael Moreno Valle, served as governor from 2011 to 2017.
In Guanajuato — which has been plagued by a sharp increase in violent crime this year — the Together We Will Make History candidate was resoundingly beaten by Diego Sinhue Rodríguez Vallejo, who won almost 50% of the vote to retain the governorship for the PAN.
For the first time in Mexico’s history, a state will be led by a governor representing the Citizens’ Movement Party (MC), which is perhaps best-known for its catchy political anthem sung by a nine-year-old boy.
Enrique Alfaro Ramírez won 39% of the vote in Jalisco, while the Together We Will Make History candidate finished second with 24%.
Finally, PAN/MC alliance candidate Mauricio Vila Dosal appears to have edged out PRI-led coalition candidate Mauricio Sahui Rivero in a tight race in Yucatán.
With just over 80% of the vote counted, the former has won 39% compared to the latter’s 36%.
Mexico News Daily
