The results of state elections in Estado de Mexico and Coahuila to be held on Sunday, June 4 may provide some early pointers as to the country’s preferences vis-a-vis next year’s presidential election.
Voters will chose governors and local legislatures in both states, with most eyes focused on the Estado de Mexico, the country’s most populous state (17 million) that encompasses many of Mexico City’s outlying suburbs. In modern times, the state has always elected a governor from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), though polls published before the obligatory pre-election-day campaign blackout (veda) kicked in on Thursday suggested this sequence could end on Sunday.
There is no question President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will be the big winner should Delfina Gómez (of the Morena, Partido de Trabajo and Green Party coalition) defeat Alejandra del Moral (of the PRI, National Action Party and Democratic Revolutionary Party coalition) in the Estado de Mexico governor’s race. Regardless of whether local issues played a part, he will see a victory for the Morena ticket as validation that his “transformation” of Mexico is on the correct course. He has consistently asserted that the Mexican people are behind him—he enjoys an approval rating of around 60 percent—and that the criticism of his policies and governing style comes from the “conservative” and “neoliberal” elites that he says caused so much hardship for Mexicans for more than three decades.