Election day in Jalisco, Sunday, June 7, unfolded smoothly, with "nothing out of the ordinary" to report, according to Jalisco Electoral Institute (IEPC) President Carlos Manuel Rodriguez. The fireworks came after the polls closed with the realization that the political landscape in the state had altered radically – no more so than in metropolitan Guadalajara.
Victories in the mayoral races of Guadalajara, Zapopan, Tlaquepaque and Tlajomulco underlined the emergence of the Citizen's Movement (MC) as a major political force in the state.
The most convincing win was in Guadalajara, where MC's Enrique Alfaro crushed Ricardo Villanueva of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) – the state governor's party – by a whopping 23 percentage points. The wide margin of victory stunned many pundits, given that most polls had predicted the race neck and neck throughout the campaign.
Alfaro's triumph in the municipality of Guadalajara ended 27 years of alternative governments headed either by the PRI or the right-of-center National Action Party (PAN).
The election was a disaster for the PAN and demonstrated how far the party's ballot box appeal has plummeted in just a few years.
Former mayor Alfonso Petersen fell short of ten percent of the vote in Guadalajara, while the PAN failed to win a single (directly elected) seat in any of the 20 districts in the Jalisco Congressional election.
It appears that no party will have an overall majority in the State Congress, with the PRI-Green Party alliance taking 10 seats and the Citizen's Movement nine, with independent candidate Kumamoto sensationally winning the race in Zapopan's District 10.
The victory of 23-year-old Kumamoto was perhaps the most surprising of the election. Working with no official funding, he built a solid base of support among young people, winning hearts and minds with his pledges to break the mold of party politics and involve citizens in the running of their districts.
It still remains to be seen which party will hold the balance of power once the 19 proportional representation seats are allocated. Whatever the outcome, Kumamoto looks likely to play a crucial "vote breaker" role in the new legislature.
In the election for the federal Chamber of Deputies (lower house), the PRI will again be the majority party, having won 28 percent of the national vote, compared to the PAN's 20 percent. However, 13 of Jalisco's 19 new federal representatives will come from the MC, with the two traditional parties suffering heavy defeats statewide.
The MC also fared well in the larger towns outside of Guadalajara, taking the mayors' contests in Jocotepec, Ciudad Guzman, Puerto Vallarta, Zapotlanejo, Ocotlan and Tepatitlan.
Monday morning, with preliminary results tallied in 113 of Jalisco's 125 municipalities, the PRI (and PRI-Green Party alliance) had triumphed in 56 mayoral races, PAN in 30, MC in 17, the Partido de la Revolution Democratica (PRD) in five, Partido del Trabajo in two, Partido Humanista in one, and Partido Encuentro Social in one.
In Chapala, Javier Degollado of the PRI-Green Party won 36.03 percent of the vote, ahead of Moises Anaya of the CM with 31.99 percent.
Eight governorships were up for grabs on Sunday. The PRI triumphed in four (San Luis Potosi, Campeche, Sonora and Colima), the PAN in two (Puebla and Baja California Sur), the PRD in one (Michoacan), while independent candidate Jaime Rodriguez ("El Bronco") won Nuevo Leon.
In the Federal District (Mexico City), Morena, the new party of former left-wing presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, looked set to be the second party in the capital's Legislative Assembly, with its ideological rival, the PRD, appearing to have lost its absolute majority for the first time in more than 12 years.