The president of the Morena party in Mexico announced on Sunday that the party has achieved a super-majority in the lower house of Congress, but not in the Senate. This puts them just shy of the two-thirds majority in both chambers required to amend the constitution.
The election of Claudia Sheinbaum as Mexico’s first female president on June 2nd was marred by preliminary results that showed her party, Morena, and its allies narrowly missing the two-thirds majority.
In the end, Morena President Mario Delgado stated on social media that his alliance, which also includes the Labor Party and the Green Party, will hold 83 seats in the 128-seat Senate, falling just short of the 85-seat supermajority threshold.
According to Delgado, the ruling communist alliance would possess 372 seats in the 500-member lower house of Congress, which is more than the 334-seat supermajority criterion.
“With a super-majority in the lower house and a majority in the Senate, we will deepen the transformation to keep building a country with well-being and shared prosperity,” added Delgado.
The electoral body of Mexico, INE, declared that it would recount 60% of the votes. Leader of the Mexican opposition, Xochitl Galvez, had demanded a recount of 80% of the ballot boxes. Sheinbaum defeated Galvez in the election by about 30 percentage points.
The markets were rattled last week due to uncertainty over the composition of the upcoming Congress, which begins in September, as both President-elect Sheinbaum and outgoing leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador indicated their support for significant constitutional changes.
Potential reforms include replacing the independent energy regulators with executive branch officials and reorganizing the court to include Supreme Court justices chosen by the general public.
