Mexico’s Ruling Party Is Seen Losing Ground

Mexico’s Ruling Party Is Seen Losing Ground

The Wall Street Journal, By DAVID LUHNOW

Mexico City.-  Mexico’s former ruling party made a strong comeback in midterm elections Sunday, defeating President Felipe Calderón’s conservative party and setting the stage for more gridlock in a politically divided country, exit polls and early returns showed.

With 13% of votes counted, the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, won 35% of the vote compared with 27% for Mr. Calderon’s National Action Party in the race for 500 congressional seats, 565 mayors and six governorships.

The biggest loser on the day was the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, which came within a hair of winning the presidency in 2006. Early returns showed it winning just 12% of the vote. Smaller parties and blank votes made up the rest of the tally.

Exit polls had the breakdown as follows: PRI 40%, PAN 29% and PRD 15%.

Written off by pundits after a third-place finish in the 2006 presidential vote, the PRI did well largely thanks to voter apathy and its well-oiled party machinery at the local level. If results from the exit polls hold, the PRI was expected to gain more than 100 seats in the lower house, while the PRD and PAN were each expected to lose scores.

Mexicans Head to Polls Sunday for Midterm Vote

Mexicans Head to Polls Sunday for Midterm Vote

The Wall Street Journal, By DAVID LUHNOW

July 5, 2009

Mexico City.-  Mexicans went to the polls Sunday in midterm elections that are likely to reduce President Felipe Calderón’s already limited room for maneuver in the country’s divided Congress, setting the stage for what could be more gridlock in a country that already seems to be going nowhere fast.