05-07-2018: Latin American Weekly Report

Andrés Manuel López Obrador has done it at the third time of asking – and in some style. After two narrow defeats in 2006 and 2012 he won a coruscating victory on 1 July. Not since Miguel de la Madrid in 1982 had a Mexican presidential candidate won with a margin of more than 30 percentage points over his closest challenger. And not since 1997 has an incoming president’s coalition won a majority in both chambers of Mexico’s federal congress. This will allow López Obrador to advance his legislative agenda without hindrance from the opposition. The established party political system was turned upside down, with all of the country’s traditional parties sustaining huge electoral setbacks. The most striking was the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which suffered its most calamitous defeat since its formation in 1929.