Leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution Loses Sway in Mexico Capital Juan Montes - The Wall Street Journal
go to original June 9, 2015

The Morena party of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, shown voting in Mexico City on Sunday, gained seats in Mexico City. (Especial/Xinhua/Zuma)

The leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, which since 1997 has enjoyed an almost complete political monopoly of this capital city, Mexico’s economic and political hub, has lost that power.

On Monday it emerged that the PRD, as the party is known, lost 8 of the 14 city districts it previously controlled and more than half of its deputies in the local legislative assembly during Sunday’s midterm elections. The post of mayor, held by Miguel Ángel Mancera of the PRD, wasn’t on the ballot.

The big winner was the Movement for National Regeneration, or Morena, a leftist party founded in 2014 by former presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador. His party won five city districts, including the city center. The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won three districts and the conservative National Action Party (PAN), won two.

The results fragmented power in Mexico City to an unprecedented degree and set back Mr. Mancera’s presidential hopes for 2018. It also confirmed the appeal of Mr. López Obrador among many Mexicans disillusioned with the political establishment. He abandoned the PRD in 2012 to found Morena.

“This is the end of the PRD hegemony in Mexico City,” said José Woldenberg, a political scientist and a former head of Mexico’s electoral agency.

Read the rest at The Wall Street Journal

Related: Mexico's Midterm Elections Bolster New Leftist Party, Independents (English.news.cn)

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