Voting in Mexican elections ends without serious disturbances

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Mexican mid-term elections, considered the largest in the country’s history, concluded after a relatively calm day despite some violent incidents in several parts of the country.

The results of these mid-term elections, which have been seen as a plebiscite to the transformation projects of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, will be announced in the next few hours. More than 93 million Mexicans were called to renew more than 20,000 positions.

Among these, the 500 legislators of the Chamber of Deputies, 15 of 32 governors, 30 local congresses, and 1,923 city councils.

At stake in the elections is whether the ruling National Regeneration Movement (Morena) manages to retain an absolute majority in the Chamber of Deputies to continue with its plans to transform the country, determining the second part of its six-year term.

“Long live democracy,” said López Obrador after casting his vote this morning at a polling station near the National Palace and displaying his thumb painted with the indelible ink proving he voted in the elections.

At 18.00 local time (23.00 GMT), when the polling stations closed in the center and east of the country, it was confirmed that more than 99% of the polling stations had been installed, out of a universe of 162,570.

For this reason, the president of the National Electoral Institute (INE), Lorenzo Córdova, celebrated after casting his vote that this Sunday was a “great democratic party” beyond what “many of us feared” after a campaign marked by violence.

“We have to participate in the direction of our country, in choosing the people who lead us”, Cristina Rodríguez told Efe from the northern city of Monterrey. At the same time, she waited her turn to vote to wear a mask due to the coronavirus pandemic.

IN RELATIVE CALM

In this election campaign, 91 politicians have been murdered since September, 36 of whom were candidates.

In addition, 910 aggressions against politicians and candidates were reported, surpassing by far the record figure of 774 aggressions of 2018 when there were presidential, federal, and local elections.

Even an INE official was murdered in Tlaxcala in the last hours, and in an ambush, five people were killed while transporting electoral paperwork in Chiapas.

During the day, there was a federal deployment of 100,000 National Guard troops, who coordinated with state and local security forces.

Although in a very focused manner, there have been several acts of violence and vandalism.

Among the most lurid, in the border city of Tijuana, in the northwestern state of Baja California, human heads were thrown into two polling stations. At the same time, in Mexicali, the offices of Morena were shot at, and armed men stole ballots.

In the Caribbean resort of Cancun, gunshots were fired outside a polling station that left no injuries.

In Michoacán, an armed group kidnapped the polling station president, and voting was suspended, although he was later released.

And in the southern state of Oaxaca, several polling stations were vandalized, and ten people were arrested for their alleged participation in the events.

In the central State of Mexico, the most populated in the country, 15 people were arrested for allegedly attacking a polling station in Metepec.

And in Naucalpan, in the same state, 33 arrests were made for the possible commission of electoral crimes by people carrying sticks and metal pipes.

OPPOSITION AND CONTROVERSIES

The leaders of the fragile Mexican opposition called for “defending democracy” when voting this Sunday and, after the closing of the polling stations, declared themselves winners in some states.

“It was a great day for Mexico, together we managed to put a stop to Morena and the destruction of the country,” said Marko Cortes, president of the right-wing National Action Party (PAN), in a first appearance after the closing of most polling stations.

The PAN has joined the once hegemonic Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) to ally “Va por México”, with which they hope to defeat the ruling party, which also proclaimed itself winner in some states in its first impressions after the closing of polling stations.

This day has not been free of controversy either, since the INE ordered this Sunday the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM) to withdraw from social networks the support campaign of several “influencers” who asked for the vote for this formation.

The elections counted with around 19,000 electoral observers and foreign visitors from missions such as the Organization of American States (OAS).

The OAS observers have not found “serious incidents” that could significantly alter these elections, explained to the media the head of the OAS mission deployed in Mexico, Santiago A. Canton.