Mexico's New Political Geography: From Party-fragmentation to the Electoral Tsunami (2012-2018)

• In Event: After the Tsunami: Mexico’s Last Elections in Comparative and Subnational Perspectives

Abstract

Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO)’s triumph in Mexico’s past presidential elections, although it was widely announced, surprised by its unexpected margin of victory. Like a tsunami, the electoral landslide headed by the founder of the new Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (MORENA) swept away the competing coalitions of Ricardo Anaya (of the Party of National Action, PAN) and José Antonio Meade (of the Party of the Institutionalized Revolution, PRI), burying the tri-partisan system that structured Mexican politics during the 1990’s. But if AMLO summed 54.7% of valid presidential ballots, his party only received 37% in the simultaneous legislative elections. Far from becoming a new, unified and hegemonic political party, MORENA’s score is the result of a profound disenchantment and of a generalized rejection of traditional parties, that produced a massive, negative vote of sanction. To capture the deeper roots and dynamics of this silent political earthquake, we distinguish three converging political processes: (1) the socio-territorial re-configuration of political forces, as a result of the fragmentation and the collapse of the former three-party system; (2) the re-alignment of new and old leaderships within a new setting of heterogeneous, sometimes counterintuitive electoral coalitions; and (3) the regional effects of attraction/rejection of the main presidential candidates, that translated into massive split-ticket voting against Anaya and Meade, and in favor of AMLO.

Author

• Willibald Sonnleitner, El Colegio de Mexico