MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AFP) — Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will have a majority in both houses of Congress, according to preliminary official results released Tuesday, cementing the anti-establishment leftist’s landslide win.
He will be the first president in Mexico’s modern democracy to have an absolute majority in both houses of Congress.
Lopez Obrador’s coalition, led by his party, Morena, will have 307 seats in the 500-member lower house and 69 in the 128-member Senate, the National Electoral Institute said in a preliminary report.
The results must still be validated by the country’s electoral court.
Lopez Obrador won 53.19 percent of the vote in the July 1 election, crushing his three rivals with a campaign calling for radical change in a country fed up with crime and corruption.
The current ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) — which governed Mexico as a one-party state from 1929 to 2000 — will be relegated to the third-largest party in parliament, along with its coalition partners, with a total of 62 seats in the lower house and 21 in the Senate.
The National Action Party (PAN), which held power from 2000 to 2012, will together with its coalition partners be the largest opposition force, with 131 seats in the lower house and 38 in the Senate.
© Agence France-Presse