Opposition Targets Mexico State Governor’s Race That Would ’Prove President’s Failure’ Nina Lakhani - The Guardian
go to original May 26, 2017

Andrés Manuel López Obrador is surrounded by supporters as he arrives at a campaign event for Delfina Gomez (Rebecca Blackwell/AP)

The crowd cheers as a mariachi band belts out a song dedicated to Andrés Manuel López Obrador, leader of Mexico’s National Regeneration party (Morena), while he poses for selfies with jostling supporters in front of the stage.

The gathering feels more like a party – complete with cake, flowers and the faint smell of alcohol and marijuana – rather than a midsize political rally on the home turf of President Enrique Peña Nieto and one of the most powerful factions of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

The event is nominally in honor of Delfina Gómez, Morena’s candidate in the 4 June election for governor of the state of Mexico. But the race is one of the the country’s most important in political, economic and symbolic terms.

Which is why López Obrador – commonly known as AMLO – is the headline act on the campaign trail as his center-left party bets on his firebrand charisma and popularity to rouse enough voters to pull off a historic victory and seal the fate of Peña Nieto’s disastrous presidency.

The state of Mexico, known as Edomex, has been governed continuously by PRI for almost 90 years, and has produced some of the party’s most influential movers and shakers.

The PRI’s other historic strongholds Veracruz and Tamaulipas fell last year amid a myriad of corruption scandals, Peña Nieto’s sinking popularity and widespread discontent.

A year later, the national picture is worse: 2017 is on track to be the most violent since the peak of the disastrous “war on drugs”, Peña Nieto’s ratings have plummeted to a historic low and the economy is shrinking.

Read the rest at The Guardian

Related: If Mexico’s Ruling Party Can’t Win Here, It’s Probably Doomed (Bloomberg)

Related: Mexico's Ruling Party PRI Has Work to Do if It Wants to Stay in Power (Associated Press)

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