The National Electoral Institute of Mexico (INE) said tonight through its “rapid count” system that left-wing candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, became the new president of the country.
Lopez Obrador, from the “Juntos Haremos Historia” (Together We’ll Make History) coalition of the Morena PES-PT parties, obtained between 53% and 53.8% of the total votes; Ricardo Anaya from the “Por Mexico al Frente” movement of the PAN-PRD-MC parties, got between 22,1% and 22,8%; while Jose Antonio Meade of the “Todos por México” coalition of the PRI-PVEM-Panal parties got between 15,7% and 16,3% of the total votes, and the independent Jaime Rodriguez got between 5,3% and 5,5%.
As the polls had predicted, the 64-year-old politician who ran for president for the third time, got the lead during the election process that began at 8:00 a.m and finished at 18:00 p.m local time.
Tonights “rapid count” results are a statistic based on voter tallies. “The most trustworthy and fastest source of information”, according to the INE.
During the next few hours, the second phase will begin with the Preliminary Electoral Results Program, which published images and data on the voter tallies and voting posts, which takes 24 hours to process.
It won´t be until July 4th when the “official count”, that is to say, the legally binding results, become public.
This Sunday´s elections included voting on 3.400 posts (629 federal posts and 2.777 local posts), among them 128 senatorial posts, 500 seats on the Chamber of Deputies, eight state governorships and the election of the mayor of Mexico City.
According to the Executive Directorate of the Electoral Organization, 156.836 voting posts were set up in the different electoral districts of 30 out of the 32 states in the country.
During the polls, 29.393 electoral overseers participated, 650 of the from abroad, and 80 of them belonging to the Organization of American States (OAS).
According to the INE, these were the largest elections in Mexican history, due to the large amount of posts (18.000) up for election.
Additionally, until June 28th, 95.953 votes were received from abroad, 80% of the coming from the U.S. This is the largest voter turnout from outside the country during the last three elections: 2006, 33.111 votes, 2012, 40.961 votes.
The candidate for the “Juntos Haremos Historia” coalition was born in the state of Tabasco and, since he began his political career, he has belonged to several opposition movements.
He participated in the presidential race of 2006 and 2012, saying that the country was run by a “power mafia”.
His detractors insist that he has links to Venezuelan populism, though his supporters consider that his tenure as mayor of Mexico City is a clear example of his “pragmatism with a social view”.
Anadolu Agency spoke with his backers, who said that he is the second contemporary Mexican president with a left wing, progressive and social agenda.
The last president that matched this criterion, they said, was Lazaro Cardenas, who spearheaded the expropriation of oil companies.
During the closure of his campaign this past June 27th, Lopez Obrador said that as soon as his victory is announced, he will call for a cabinet meeting in order to start working on the 2018-2024 government program.
Among his most noteworthy proposals, is the pacification process in face of the violent situation, which he called an “amnesty”, during which he will call on victims, civil society organizations, religious leaders, and international organizations such as the UN, as well as pope Francis.
He will also cut the salaries of high ranking government officials, cancel the pension of former presidents, sell the presidential airplane, reduce his own salary and will call on a “government of austerity” amongst his collaborators.
Mexico's next president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said on Monday he will seek to remain in NAFTA along with the United States and Canada and that he respects the existing Mexican team renegotiating the trade pact.
Lopez Obrador won a landslide election victory on Sunday, getting more than double the votes of his nearest rival, dealing a resounding blow to establishment parties and becoming the first leftist to win the Mexican presidency since one-party rule ended in 2000.
"We are going to accompany the current government in this negotiation, we are going to be very respectful, and we are going to support the signing of the agreement," he told Milenio TV in an telephone interview, saying the aim was a deal on the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement that was good for Mexico.
He also said he would pursue a frank dialogue and friendly relations with the United States. Lopez Obrador, who will take office in December, said he would discuss NAFTA with President Enrique Pena Nieto in their first meeting after the election, set for Tuesday.
U.S. President Donald Trump has been openly antagonistic to Mexico over trade and migration since his own presidential campaign. The current NAFTA talks began last year after Trump called for the agreement to be renegotiated to better serve U.S. interests.
Although Trump congratulated Lopez Obrador in a Twitter message on Sunday night, a White House aide then reiterated one of the U.S. leader's most controversial campaign promises.
"In the case of Mexico, obviously we share a border with them (and) this president has made very clear about building that wall and having Mexico pay for it," Kellyanne Conway said on Fox News.
Mexican politicians across the political spectrum have long said that Mexico will not pay for Trump's proposed wall along the southern U.S. border, which he has said is needed to keep out both illegal immigrants and narcotics.
Lopez Obrador has said he wants to make Mexico more economically independent of the United States.
At the same time, he also hopes to persuade Trump to help develop Mexico and Central America in order to contain illegal migration.
Lopez Obrador, a 64-year-old former mayor of Mexico City, won more than 53 percent of votes in Sunday's election, preliminary results showed. Mexicans also voted for congressional candidates and thousands of state and local government posts.
Lopez Obrador won the biggest share of the vote in a Mexican presidential election since the early 1980s, giving him a strong mandate both to address the country's domestic problems and to face external challenges like the threat of a trade war with the United States.
In his victory speech and in comments to local TV networks, Lopez Obrador sought to assure investors he would pursue prudent economic policies and the independence of the central bank. His economic advisers repeated this message in a call on Monday with investors.
Even so, the peso weakened 1 percent against the dollar and Mexico's S&P/BMV IPC benchmark stock index was also down almost 1 percent as exit polls showed Lopez Obrador's MORENA party could win the first outright majority in Congress in over 20 years.
Pollsters' early estimates suggested the party was close to winning the lower house but farther away in the Senate.
Rating agency Moody's said Lopez Obrador's election win brought short-term market volatility and raised risks for the oil sector, after he reiterated comments that he would review oil contracts issued under Pena Nieto for signs of corruption.
