The president of the National Electoral Institute (INE), Guadalupe Taddei, announced “quick count” results for the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate late Sunday.

For each party, the INE calculated a range for the number of seats they could win in each house of Congress. The ranges are based on the percentage of votes each party received.

Morena and its allies, the Labor Party (PT) and the Ecological Green Party of Mexico (PVEM), will easily win more than 300 seats in the 500-seat Chamber of Deputies, according to the quick count. The wins will give them a supermajority in the lower house of Congress.

If the three parties win the upper end of their predicted range of Senate seats, they will also achieve a two-thirds majority in the upper house. Final results for the congressional elections are due later this week.

Morena and its allies currently have a simple majority in both houses of Congress.

A supermajority in both houses would allow the coalition led by Morena to approve constitutional reform proposals without the support of opposition parties. That would give immense power to president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, who won the presidential election in a landslide.

She has expressed support for a package of constitutional reform proposals President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) submitted to Congress earlier this year.

More on those proposals — and what a Morena supermajority would mean for the current president and his successor — later.

The Chamber of Deputies

The INE quick count results show that Morena, the PT and the PVEM will win between 346 and 380 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Such a result would give the alliance an unexpected supermajority.

Lawmakers are elected to the lower house both directly and according to a proportional representation system.

The breakdown of the predicted 346-380 seat range is as follows:

• Morena is expected to win between 41.2% and 42.8% of the vote, giving the party a total of 233-251 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.
• PT is expected to win between 5.3% and 6.1% of the vote, giving the party a total of 46-52 seats.
• PVEM is expected to win between 8.1% and 9.1% of the vote, giving the party a total of 67-77 seats.

The three-party opposition alliance made up of the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) will win between 94 and 129 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, according to the quick count.

The breakdown of that range is as follows:

• PAN could win between 17.3% and 18.7% of the vote, giving the party a total of 64-80 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.
• PRI could win between 11.1% and 11.9% of the vote, giving the party a total of 30-41 seats.
• PRD could win between 2.4% and 3.1% of the vote, giving the party a total of 0-8 seats.

Citizens Movement (MC) is expected to win between 11.1% and 12% of the vote, giving the party a total of 23-32 seats.

Independent candidates are expected to win between 0% and 0.9% of the vote. Such candidates could fail to win any seats in the lower house, or they could get a maximum of two, according to the INE quick count.

The Senate

The quick count results show that Morena, the PT and the PVEM will win between 76 and 88 seats in the Senate. To reach a two-thirds majority, they will need to win a minimum of 86 seats. As is the case with the lower house, Senate seats are allocated directly and according to a proportional representation system.

The breakdown of the predicted 76-88 seat range is as follows:

• Morena could win between 41.9% and 44% of the vote, giving the party a total of 57-60 seats in the Senate.
• PT could win between 5.3% and 6.5% of the vote, giving the party a total of 9-13 seats.
• PVEM could win between 8.6% and 9.8% of the vote, giving the party a total of 10-15 seats.

The PAN-PRI-PRD alliance is likely to win between 34 and 43 seats in the Senate.

The breakdown of that range is as follows:

• PAN could win between 15.8% and 17.9% of the vote, giving the party a total of 19-22 seats in the Senate.
• PRI could win between 10.7% and 12.3% of the vote, giving the party a total of 15-18 seats.
• PRD could win between 2 and 2.7% of the vote, giving the party a total of 0-3 seats.

MC could win between 10.9% and 12% of the vote, giving the party a total of 4-8 Senate seats.

What would a Morena supermajority in Congress mean for the current and future president?

If Morena and its allies end up securing a two-thirds majority in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Mexican Senate, López Obrador will have a one-month window of opportunity to push constitutional changes through Congress. That is because the lawmakers elected on Sunday will assume their positions on Sept. 1 and the president will leave office on Oct. 1.

AMLO, as noted earlier, submitted a package of constitutional reform proposals to Congress in February. Among his proposals are ones to:

• Guarantee that annual minimum salary increases outpace inflation.
• Overhaul the pension system so that retired workers receive pensions equivalent to 100% of their final salaries.
• Allow citizens to directly elect Supreme Court justices and other judges.
• Eliminate numerous autonomous government agencies.
• Reduce the number of federal lawmakers and the amount of money spent on elections and funding political parties.
• Incorporate the National Guard into the military.
• Ban fracking and genetically modified corn — the latter of which is a source of conflict with the United States.

Opposition parties vehemently oppose many of López Obrador’s proposals, especially ones they regard as attacks on Mexico’s democratic system and institutions.

There is also significant opposition to his plan to reincorporate the National Guard into the military. AMLO put the security force under the control of the Defense Ministry in 2022, but the Supreme Court ruled last year that that move was unconstitutional.

Even if Morena and its allies win a two-thirds majority in both the lower and upper houses of Mexico’s Congress, it is unlikely that López Obrador would be able to get all 20 of his constitutional reform proposals approved in the space of a single month.

That’s where Sheinbaum comes in.

She backs the president’s proposals and campaigned on her commitment to build on AMLO’s so-called “fourth transformation.” If Morena’s coalition has a supermajority in both houses of Congress, there will be ample time to pass the proposals.

Some analysts believe López Obrador sent the constitutional proposals to Congress in order to set the agenda for his successor. However, AMLO asserted on Monday that he didn’t want to “impose anything” on his successor.

“We have to come to an agreement to look at these [reform] initiatives with Claudia and other things,” he said.

A Morena supermajority in both houses would give enormous power to Sheinbaum, who will become Mexico’s first ever female president on Oct. 1.

Given her comprehensive victory over opposition bloc candidate Xóchitl Gálvez, she could rightfully argue that she has a strong mandate to make the constitutional changes proposed by López Obrador, as well as other reforms she puts forward herself.

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The party founded by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador also won the Mexico City mayoral race, with Clara Brugada prevailing over PAN-PRI-PRD candidate Santiago Taboada.

Candidates backed by Morena and its allies won the gubernatorial contests in Chiapas, Morelos, Puebla, Tabasco, Veracruz and Yucatán.

In Guanajuato, the candidate for the PAN-PRI-PRD alliance won, while a Citizens Movement (MC) party candidate looked set to retain the governorship of Jalisco for that party.

When the new governors and Mexico City mayor take office, Morena and its allies, the Labor Party (PT) and the Ecological Green Party of Mexico (PVEM), will govern 24 of Mexico’s 32 federal entities.

Registered as a political party just 10 years ago, Morena, with Sunday’s results, further entrenches itself as the dominant political force in Mexico.

The party — whose name is an acronym of Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (National Regeneration Movement), but also means brown-skinned woman — also won strong majorities in both houses of federal Congress, according to preliminary results, as well as numerous mayoral contests in municipal elections held across the country.

Early results show big win for Morena in Chiapas 

Eduardo Ramírez Aguilar, the Morena-PT-PVEM candidate in Chiapas, won a resounding victory in the southern state, which is currently governed by Morena.

Preliminary results updated at midday Monday showed he he attracted 79.1% of the vote.

Olga Luz Espinosa, candidate for the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), finished in a distant second place with just under 12% of the vote.

Ramírez, a former federal senator, said on the social platform X that he was “very grateful” to citizens who “bet on the the continuity of the transformation,” a reference to the so-called “fourth transformation” initiated by López Obrador and the Morena party.

“There are more of us who want to transform our state, and this was reflected at the ballot box,” he wrote.

PAN-PRI-PRD alliance prevails in Guanajuato

Libia García Muñoz Ledo won the governorship of Guanajuato for the PAN, PRI and the PRD. She will become the state’s first ever female governor.

The 40-year-old candidate won around 51% of the vote, according to preliminary results, while the Morena-PT-PVEM aspirant, Alma Alcaraz Hernández, had the support of about 41%.

García’s victory ensures the continuation of National Action Party rule in Guanajuato, which has been a PAN stronghold for decades.

“We won!” the candidate wrote on X.

“For the first time a woman will be at the front of the governor of Guanajuato,” García said.

“… Thank you for trusting in the best project for our people.”

MC likely to retain Jalisco

Among Mexico’s eight gubernatorial elections, Jalisco saw the closest contest on Sunday. Preliminary results showed MC candidate Pablo Lemus with almost 41% of the vote, while Morena-PT-PVEM hopeful Claudia Delgadillo had 38.5% support.

More than 40% of votes had still not been counted at midday.

Jalisco is currently governed by MC governor Enrique Alfaro Ramírez.

Lemus, a former mayor of Guadalajara, has claimed victory, but as of early Monday afternoon, Delgadillo had not conceded defeat. She said on X that she wouldn’t accept the announcement of a winner until all the votes have been counted.

Morena maintains power in Morelos

Margarita González Saravia, candidate for Morena and its allies, won convincingly in Morelos, according to preliminary results. She will become the state’s first female governor.

The former head of Mexico’s National Lottery attracted about 48% of the vote, well ahead of PAN-PRI-PRD candidate Lucía Meza Guzmán on just over 30%.

Former soccer star Cuauhtémoc Blanco governed Morelos until April, when he stepped down to stand as a candidate for the federal Chamber of Deputies.

Morena is in office in the state and with González’s victory will rule for another six years.

“The people of Morelos triumphed,” the Morena candidate wrote on X above “quick count” results that showed she was the clear winner.

Early results show Morena holding on to Puebla 

Morena-PT-PVEM candidate Alejandro Armenta Mier was a clear victor in Puebla’s gubernatorial election with around 59% of the vote, according to preliminary results.

PAN-PRI-PRD candidate Eduardo Rivera Pérez was well behind with around 33% support.

Armenta will succeed current Morena governor Sergio Salómon Cespedes.

“The only thing that moves us is love for Puebla,” Armenta wrote on X.

“Thank you because with the participation of the poblanos [residents of Puebla], we will continue making history with Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum,” the winning candidate added.

Morena secures titanic triumph in Tabasco election

Javier May Rodríguez, a former federal welfare minister and ex-head of the National Tourism Promotion Fund, scored a crushing victory for Morena and its allies in Tabasco, the home state of President López Obrador.

May attracted over 80% of the vote, leaving his two rivals with single-digit support.

He will replace current Morena governor Carlos Merino Campos later this year.

“This historic triumph is for all the people of Tabasco, the same people who welcomed us with happiness and open arms on every walk, at every event and in every meeting,” May wrote on X.

“Thank you for believing in a better Tabasco for everyone!”

Veracruz vaults Morena candidate into the state’s top job

Former federal energy minister Rocío Nahle won the governorship of Veracruz for the alliance headed up by Morena. She will become the state’s first female governor.

Nahle attracted more than 58% of the vote, according to preliminary results, well ahead of the PAN-PRI-PRD candidate José Francisco Yunes on 32%.

She will head up the second Morena government in Veracruz when she succeeds current Governor Cuitláhuac García later this year.

“In Veracruz we will continue making history,” Nahle wrote on X.

“Democracy and the continuation of the transformation triumphed. Thank you very much!”

Morena wins Yucatán gubernatorial election for the first time

The only upset among the eight gubernatorial races was the triumph of Morena candidate Joaquín Díaz Mena in Yucatán.

Díaz, who was injured in a car accident last Wednesday, attracted around 51% of the vote, according to preliminary results. Morena will thus take office for the first time in Yucatán, which has been governed by both PAN and PRI governments this century.

PAN-PRI candidate Renán Barrera, a former Mérida mayor, attracted support of around 42.5%.

Díaz, who served as the federal government’s “super-delegate” in Yucatán for almost five years before becoming Morena’s gubernatorial candidate, thanked Barrera on X for conceding defeat.

“I thank him very much for his good wishes for the good of our state,” the Morena candidate wrote.

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Brugada, who also represented the Labor Party and the Green Party, attracted over 50% of the vote, more than 10 points clear of PAN-PRI-PRD candidate Santiago Taboada, who had the support of just under 40% of voters.

Salomón Chertorivski of the Citizens Movement party was in a distant third place with about 7% of the vote.

Clara Brugada, a former mayor of the Mexico City borough of Itzapalapa, took to social media to acknowledge her victory.

“Based on the results issued by the electoral authority, the trend is clear: the majority of the people of this city want the transformation to continue,” she said in a post to X in the early hours of Monday.

The “transformation” she was referring to is the so-called “fourth transformation” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asserts his government is undertaking in Mexico. Claudia Sheinbaum, who won Sunday’s presidential election in a landslide, has pledged to build on that transformation.

With her victory, Brugada will assume one of Mexico’s most powerful political positions — and is already a key ally of the new president.

Previous Mexico City mayors include Sheinbaum, who stepped down a year ago to focus on the presidential election, and López Obrador, who was in office in the capital between 2000 and 2005 before launching the first of his three presidential bids.

Felicidades querida @ClaudiaShein por escribir una página más de la historia y convertirte en la primera Presidenta de México. Estoy segura que continuarás el legado de nuestro gran presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

¡Contigo, llegamos todas!#ClaudiaPresidenta… pic.twitter.com/50vOHEmCUd

— Clara Brugada Molina (@ClaraBrugadaM) June 3, 2024

Sheinbaum won the 2018 Mexico City mayoral election for Morena, ending the long-running rule of the Democractic Revolution Party (PRD) in the capital. López Obrador, former foreign affairs minister Marcelo Ebrard and Senator Miguel Ángel Mancera all represented the PRD when they were mayors of Mexico City earlier this century.

Brugada, who was selected as Morena’s candidate in the capital despite finishing second in the party’s internal selection contest, is perhaps best known for her “utopía” community center projects in Iztapalapa, which provide free athletic, recreation and education opportunities in the disadvantaged borough.

During her campaign, she pledged to establish 100 additional utopías across the capital’s 15 other boroughs if she succeeded in becoming mayor.

One of the key challenges she will face after she is sworn in on Oct. 5 is guaranteeing ongoing water supply for the capital.

Brugada has pledged to create a water-focused ministry in Mexico City, expand the capital’s rainwater harvesting program and establish a new program for the “rehabilitation” of 11 water sources, among other measures.

She has also said she will allocate “billions of pesos” to water projects in the capital, where many residents don’t have running water in their homes and depend on deliveries from trucks known as pipas.

Security and transport will be other key issues for Brugada, 60, who has also served as a federal and Mexico City lawmaker.

Voters in Mexico City also elected deputies to the capital’s Congress on Sunday. Morena and its allies look set to maintain a majority in the 66-seat unicameral legislature.

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The peso was trading at under 17 to the US dollar on Sunday but depreciated to as low as 17.7 on Monday morning according to Bloomberg data. In percentage terms, the peso declined around 4%.

At 10 a.m. Mexico City time, the peso had recovered somewhat to trade at 17.58 to the dollar but was back up to 17.69 by 11 a.m.

Gabriela Siller, director of economic analysis at Mexican bank Banco Base, said on X that the peso had depreciated due to “greater risk.”

She wrote that “80% of peso vs dollar transactions are speculative” and that “the risk-reward trade-off” for investors had changed due to the election result.

“With a majority in the Congress, Morena and its allies could change the constitution,” Siller said.

Janneth Quiroz, director of analysis at the Monex financial group, said on X that the peso depreciated due to “nervousness” among investors following the announcement of preliminary election results.

Those results showed that Morena and its allies, the Labor Party and the Ecological Green Party of Mexico, were likely to win a two-thirds majority in the lower house of Congress, and could also achieve a supermajority in the Senate.

A two-thirds majority in both houses would allow Morena and its allies to approve constitutional reform proposals without the support of opposition parties.

That possibility “generated concern” in the market, said Quiroz, who noted that the peso had depreciated to its weakest position since last November.

Sheinbaum’s victory was widely expected as she maintained a commanding lead in the polls throughout the three-month-long campaign period. But Morena and its allies weren’t widely expected to win two-thirds majorities in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

Buoyed by a large differential between interest rates in Mexico and those in the United States, as well as strong incoming flows of remittances and foreign investment, the peso has performed well against the dollar for an extended period.

In April, the peso reached 16.30 to the dollar, its strongest position in almost nine years.

The low of 17.7 on Monday morning represents a depreciation of around 8% for the peso compared to that level.

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Sheinbaum — who campaigned heavily on her commitment to build on the so-called “fourth transformation” of Mexico initiated by the current president — attracted 58-60% of the vote, according to “quick count” results announced by the president of the National Electoral Institute (INE) Guadalupe Taddei late Sunday.

Her main rival, Xóchitl Gálvez of a three-party opposition bloc, was around 30 points behind with 26-28% of the vote.

Jorge Álvarez Máynez, candidate for the Citizens Movement party, attracted about 10% of the vote.

Sheinbaum celebrated her comprehensive victory with an appearance after 1 a.m. Monday in the Zócalo, Mexico City’s central square.

“I feel excited and grateful for the recognition [the Mexican people] have given to the fourth transformation of public life in Mexico,” she said.

Sheinbaum, a former mayor of Mexico City, noted that it was the first time a woman had been elected president of Mexico since the country became independent more than 200 years ago.

Supporters responded with chants of “presidenta, presidenta,” the female form of the Spanish word for president.

Sheinbaum subsequently acknowledged a number of female Mexican trailblazers who preceded her, including independence insurgent Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez.

She also recognized “all the anonymous Mexican women” who have “built the homeland.”

Sheinbaum, 61, will be sworn in as president on Oct. 1 for a six-year term that will end in 2030. She is also the country’s first Jewish head of state.

Tens of millions of Mexicans voted across Mexico and from abroad on Sunday in what were the country’s largest ever elections. As of Monday morning, voter participation nationally was estimated to be 60.1% according to the INE.

The result in the presidential contest was a strong endorsement of the presidency of López Obrador, who took office in 2018 after the scandal-plagued term of the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s Enrique Peña Nieto.

AMLO, as the president is best known, is a polarizing figure in Mexico, but has retained strong support throughout his six-year term. He created Morena around a decade ago and it has since become Mexico’s dominant political force, governing the majority of the country’s 32 states.

Sheinbaum, a close ally and political protege of the president, has pledged to continue and strengthen López Obrador’s policies and programs, including the provision of welfare and social programs that have helped lift millions of Mexicans out of poverty.

Gálvez, an Indigenous Otomí woman and former senator, quickly became one of Mexico’s best-known politicians after announcing her presidential run and winning the nomination of the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolution Party.

While she won the support of millions of Mexicans, many others were clearly not prepared to vote for parties — namely the PRI and the PAN — that have previously held power and are associated with ills such as corruption and high levels of violence.

Mexicans on Sunday also voted to renew both houses of federal Congress and to elect thousands of state and municipal representatives including a new Mexico City mayor and the governors of nine states.

Morena and its allies — the Labor Party (PT) and the Green Party (PVEM) — were on track to win majorities in both houses of federal Congress and also came out on top in many other key contests, including in the Mexico City mayoral election, according to preliminary results.

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Meanwhile, Mexico’s overall homicide numbers remain very high, even though they have trended down since 2021, according to official data.

To gain a better understanding of the recent electoral violence and how it relates to Mexican cartels, and the national security situation more broadly, I spoke to Chris Dalby, director of the World of Crime media company and publishing house, former managing editor of the think tank/media organization Insight Crime and author of a new guide to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG.

Electoral violence and the most powerful Mexican cartels

We started off talking about the violence that has plagued the 2023-24 electoral process, which will culminate this Sunday with the election of almost 20,000 municipal, state and federal representatives.

“What we’re seeing in this electoral cycle is the continuation and worsening of electoral and political criminal relationships that have existed for decades in Mexico,” Dalby said.

He went on to explain that the ways in which the Sinaloa Cartel and the CJNG — Mexico’s two most powerful cartels — seek to hold sway over politicians, the candidates who aspire to public office and the electoral process in Mexico are “drastically different.”

The Sinaloa Cartel

Formerly headed up by the infamous — and now imprisoned — drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the Sinaloa Cartel is “often considered the largest and most powerful drug trafficking organization in the Western Hemisphere,” according to Insight Crime.

Dalby told me that the cartel has long-established criminal networks in areas it has criminal control over — including the states of Sinaloa, Sonora and Baja California — and therefore doesn’t need to be overly violent in order to maintain its influence, including over incoming politicians.

Those networks include corrupt municipal and state officials because “playing ball is just part of the game up there,” Dalby said.      

“Of course, if there is a mayor or governor who doesn’t play ball, bodies are going to drop,” he added, noting that while the Sinaloa Cartel doesn’t have the same penchant for violence as the CJNG, it’s not afraid to use its firepower if need be.

The 2019 Battle of Culiacán, or Culiacanazo, is one example of the cartel’s willingness to use violence to get what it wants.

Dalby explained that in certain parts of Sinaloa, such as Chapo’s home town of Badiraguato or the capital Culiacán, “to reach the position of being a candidate … it’s understood you’re going to do business” with the Sinaloa Cartel, one faction of which is controlled by Chapo’s sons, known as Los Chapitos.

So entrenched is the influence of the Sinaloa Cartel in certain parts of northern Mexico, “you’re not getting nominated” as a candidate by party powerbrokers unless you’re willing to “play ball,” he said.

While Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) governments have governed Sinaloa and Sonora in recent decades, those two states — and Baja California — are now ruled by Morena, the party founded by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Dalby cited the contents of journalist Anabel Hernández’s new book “La Historia Secreta: AMLO y el Cartel de Sinaloa” as evidence that some Morena politicians and officials are in cahoots with the Sinaloa Cartel.

(López Obrador, notably, last week called Hernández “the queen of fiction.”)

Before Morena came to power, the Sinaloa Cartel had “a very long relationship with the PRI” in northern Mexico, Dalby said.

“Dealing with the Sinaloa Cartel … was seen as the cost of doing business for politicians, police prosecutors, [and] even foreign investors,” he added.

The CJNG

The criminal organization headed up by the elusive Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes operates “completely differently” from the Sinaloa Cartel, said Dalby, who has studied, analyzed and reported on crime in Mexico for over a decade.

“They don’t seem that interested in criminal governance, they don’t seem that interested in community relations, they don’t seem that interested in cultivating those long-term political ties that would eventually lead to not needing to kill people,” he said.

“Violence is woven into the MO of the Jalisco Cartel on a far more basic level,” Dalby added.

For that reason, electoral violence and murders of police are higher in states where the CJNG is in control or has a significant presence, he said.

“Every time there’s an election there’s a new crop of candidates to conquer, so to speak. So you either convince them to play with you or you eliminate them,” Dalby said.

“… That’s why in the last two or three [electoral] cycles, the Jalisco Cartel has been the [Mexican cartel] connected to most political violence,” said the organized crime expert.

He asserted that while the CJNG is “not the biggest cartel” and “not the richest cartel —  that’s Sinaloa” — it is “the principal security threat to Mexico”

Dalby said that a lot of flare-ups of violence in Mexico are due to the CJNG moving in on territories controlled by other criminal groups. Sometimes, the ensuing turf wars last for years.

For example, Dalby noted, the CJNG’s fight with the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel over the fuel theft racket in Guanajuato — Mexico’s most violent state in terms of total homicides —  has being going on for longer than World War II.

He also said that cartels, including the CJNG, are “much more horizontal that we think,” explaining that plaza bosses — criminal leaders that control a particular territory for a criminal organization — have “immense leeway to act as they see fit.”

The murder of Morena’s mayoral candidate in Celaya

Expanding on his point about plaza bosses, Dalby mentioned the murder in April of Morena’s mayoral candidate in the Guanajuato city of Celaya, Gisela Gaytán, allegedly by CJNG members.

If it was the Jalisco Cartel who killed her, “I’m not certain that’s a decision that Mencho would be taking,” he said.

“That’s probably the CJNG plaza boss in Guanajuato or in Celaya who thinks that that candidate is likely to win and is not going to play ball and is [therefore] worth taking out,” Dalby said.

Concentration of violence at the municipal level

Political violence in Mexico is most common at the municipal level, at which candidates and officials are usually more accessible to the public and have small or non-existent security details.

Indeed, the majority of candidates killed during the current electoral cycle aspired to become municipal mayors.

Further explaining the concentration of political and electoral violence at the municipal level, Dalby noted that killing a governor or a gubernatorial candidate is “going to bring you more heat” than murdering a mayor or someone running for that office.

Turning his attention back to the CJNG, Dalby said that that cartel engages in the “systematic extortion of everything,” including the budgets of municipal governments.

 The CJNG routinely demands that 10% to 15% of municipal budgets be paid “straight into their bank accounts,” he said.

Dalby added that the Jalisco cartel also demands “help” from municipal officials including mayors to “extort every industry in your town,” which depending on the location could include sectors such as avocado production and ranching.

Why has electoral violence increased since Morena came to power?

I asked Dalby why electoral violence has worsened since President López Obrador took office and since Morena came to power in many of Mexico’s states, including the three states — Chiapas, Guerrero and Michoacán — that have recorded the highest number of candidate murders this electoral cycle.

“Morena as a party doesn’t have a long institutional culture” and therefore doesn’t have long-established political networks, he told me.

“Dealing with Morena is dealing with individual people and that of course can lead to friction because … you don’t have instructions from up high saying ‘you deal with the cartel or otherwise you’re dead,’” Dalby said.

“Every [Morena] mayor, every governor has a little bit more flexibility and that either maximizes the opportunity for corruption or maximizes the opportunity for violence,” he added.

During the current electoral cycle, it should be noted, Morena candidates have been killed in significantly higher numbers than those of any other party.

Can violence in Mexico be reduced in a meaningful way?

Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Dalby whether, in his view, it was in fact possible to reduce violence in a meaningful way in Mexico given that the country is on the doorstep of the world’s largest market for illicit drugs, is located between the U.S. and cocaine-producing countries in South America, is a fentanyl manufacturing hub and is home to criminal organizations fiercely competing to control the illegal narcotics trade.

“Sustained double-digit drops” in homicide numbers would take years and “a level of political stability and policy stability from government to government” in Mexico and the United States that “shows no sign of being realistic,” he told me.

While official homicide numbers — the accuracy of which some analysts question — have declined since 2021, “AMLO has done nothing, precisely nothing, to stop the cartels — no new ideas, no strategy,” Dalby asserted.

Returning to the question of violence reduction, he said it is possible to bring murder numbers down significantly at a local level — in a certain region, for example — by “flooding an area with troops and keeping them there.”

However, that strategy can be “hugely costly” in terms of deaths of security personnel, Dalby said.

He stressed the importance of conducting rigorous investigations into cartels and their illicit activities, and said that Omar García Harfuch — security minister in Claudia Sheinbaum’s Mexico City government and target of a cartel attack in 2020 — is one official who has done that.

If Sheinbaum wins the presidency this Sunday, as polls suggest she will, and García Harfuch — also a former Criminal Investigation Agency chief — gets a position in her cabinet, “I have some hope that there will be some good investigation because … he has consistently investigated cartels,” Dalby said.

He said that “following the money” can be a particularly valuable strategy, but portrayed the efforts of Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit — which in recent years has frozen thousands of bank accounts linked to criminal organizations — as inconsequential.

“Since the war in Ukraine started, the U.S. and the E.U. have shown an ability to track Russian funds around the world, freeze them and choke the Kremlin’s financial resources,” Dalby said.

“Cartels move tens of billions of dollars through shadowy banking practices, through Chinese money laundering, through black market peso exchange and through crypto currency — that can be followed” he said.

Dalby also said that the legalization or decriminalization of drugs can be a successful strategy against cartels, noting that demand in the United States for Mexican marijuana “plummeted” due to widespread legalization of cannabis in the U.S.

However, he called the widespread decriminalization of hard drugs in the United States a “pipe dream.”

Decriminalizing drugs “means having a support system for addicts, it means creating a domestic production and distribution [capacity] legally controlled by the government or private companies,” Dalby said. “That is legally very complicated, economically even more so.”

By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)

* Chris Dalby’s book about the Jalisco Cartel, “CJNG: A Quick Guide to Mexico’s Deadliest Cartel” is available on Amazon.

The post How Mexican cartels wield electoral violence, according to organized crime expert Chris Dalby appeared first on Mexico News Daily

The incident inside a vehicle was captured on video and posted to the social platform X this week by an account created this month with the handle @subdiplomatic.

British Ambassador to Mexico, Jon Benjamin, points a semi automatic weapon at concerned Mexican staff member. In a context of daily killings in Mexico by drug dealers, he dares to joke. @DailyMirror @guardian @TheSun @TheEconomist @Telegraph @DailyMailUK @FCDOGovUK pic.twitter.com/1obqgsNnTD

— Subdiplomatic (@subdiplomatic) May 28, 2024

“British Ambassador to Mexico, Jon Benjamin, points a semi automatic weapon at concerned Mexican staff member. In a context of daily killings in Mexico by drug dealers, he dares to joke,” says a message above the five-second clip.

Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, the Financial Times reported Friday that Benjamin lost his job “soon after the episode in April.”

The newspaper noted that Benjamin no longer appears as the ambassador to Mexico on the U.K. government website, with the former deputy head of mission, Rachel Brazier, now listed as the chargé d’affaires.

The Times said that “foreign officials visiting dangerous parts of Mexico typically travel with armed staff for protection.”

Thus, the weapon Benjamin pointed at an embassy employee likely belonged to security personnel protecting him as he toured northern Mexico, parts of which are notorious for cartel activity.

The U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said that it was aware of the incident and has taken “appropriate action.”

“Where internal issues do arise the FCDO has robust HR processes to address them,” the government department said.

The Financial Times said that Benjamin “remained a Commonwealth and Development Office employee after his removal as ambassador.”

The British Embassy in Mexico City hasn’t publicly commented on the affair.

The Financial Times reported that the @subdiplomatic X account is “apparently controlled by employees of the embassy angry over mistreatment of local staff.”

One post says that the “British Embassy in Mexico has a history of hiding things to the public including how Jon Benjamin’s attitude of being ‘above everything’ has resulted in the systematic harassment of Mexican staff.”

Another post says that the embassy’s Mexican staff members are “terrified of speaking up about these injustices because internal whistleblowing tools are broken and favor British Diplomats.”

“They are afraid to lose their livelihoods if they speak up,” the post adds.

A @subdiplomatic post from last Monday says that the embassy is “apparently trying to cover [up] the [gun-pointing] scandal just a week ahead of the Mexican elections.”

On his LinkedIn page, Benjamin describes himself as a “diplomat of 38 years standing” and says he has been “part of the Foreign Office’s senior management since 2002.”

He previously served as U.K. ambassador to Chile and Ghana and before that had postings in Indonesia, Turkey and the United States.

Benjamin became British ambassador to Mexico in 2021 and frequently posted updates about his activities to social media.

“Entering Sinaloa, the 29th of Mexico’s 32 States I’ve visited so far,” he said in a LinkedIn post last month.

The Financial Times said that Benjamin didn’t immediately respond to its requests for comment on his dismissal and its circumstances. Posts to his X account are currently only visible to approved followers.

With reports from The Financial Times 

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In a report published on Wednesday, the Health Ministry said there were an additional 13 heat-related deaths between May 22 and May 28.

The total number of heat-related deaths in May thus rose to 56. The other five occurred in April.

Most of the 61 deaths were caused by heat stroke, according to the Health Ministry, while a few were attributed to dehydration.

Mexico is currently going through its third heat wave of the year, while the second also occurred in May.

On Friday, the National Meteorological Service (SMN) forecast temperatures over 45 C for parts of Campeche, Chiapas, Guerrero, Michoacán, Morelos, Nuevo León, Oaxaca, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Zacatecas.

Heat-related deaths up over 1,000% compared to the same time last year

By late May last year, the Health Ministry had only registered five heat-related deaths across Mexico, meaning that this year’s death toll is currently up 1,120% in annual terms.

However, 2023 was by no means a mild year. There were three heat waves in Mexico last year, according to the SMN, the longest and deadliest of which occurred last June.

Mexico’s heat-related death toll soared to 421 by the end of the official “hot” season in October 2023. That figure was 10 times the number of heat-related deaths in 2022.

Which states have recorded the most heat fatalities this year?

The Health Ministry said that Veracruz has recorded the highest number of fatalities this year with 16.

Tabasco ranks second with 11, followed by San Luis Potosí (9), Tamaulipas (9), Oaxaca (4), Nuevo León (4) and Hidalgo (4).

Chiapas, Campeche, Guanajuato and Sonora have recorded one heat-related death each.

The Health Ministry also reported 1,346 recorded cases of heat-related illnesses so far this year. Just over 65% of those cases — 881 — were heat stroke, 32% of the total were dehydration and 2.5% were sunburn.

The case-fatality rate for heat-related illnesses in Mexico so far this year is 4.52%, the Health Ministry said.

With reports from El Economista 

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But as this piece by Bethany Platanella revealed, the two countries do have certain things in common, including a reverence for ancient grains — rice in Japan, corn in Mexico — and a penchant for public displays of religious devotion.

In this Japan and Mexico data comparison — the latest edition to our “Japan in Focus” and Mexico in Numbers series — you’ll see that the two countries have some other similarities, as well as some significant differences.

Population

Japan and Mexico currently have similarly-sized populations, but they are set to diverge in coming years.

Population of Japan 

The Japanese government estimated in October 2023 that the population of Japan was 124.35 million, a reduction of 595,000 people or 0.48% compared to a year earlier.

The Japanese population has, in fact, been in decline for over a decade as the number of deaths exceeds the number of births.

In 2023, Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research said that the country’s population is “projected to decrease to 87 million in 2070,” a decline of 30% compared to the current level.

“According to the assumption of this revision, the total population will fall below 100 million in 2056, a delay of 3 years from the previous projection,” the institute said.

“The pace of population decline is expected to slow down slightly, mainly due to the increase in international migration,” it added.

Population of Mexico 

The population of Mexico was just over 126 million at the time of the last census in 2020 and exceeded 131 million last year, according to the National Population Council.

In contrast to Japan, the population of Mexico is growing, albeit at a rate that has slowed over the past decade.

On World Population Day last July, the National Population Council said that Mexico’s population “will continue growing slowly” in the coming decades before reaching a peak of 147 million in 2053.

Subsequently, “for the first time in history,” Mexico’s population will start to decline, the council said, adding that in 2070 the population is projected to be 141.4 million.

If the projections for Japan and Mexico are right, Mexico’s population will be 62% larger than that of Japan in 2070, whereas it is currently only about 5% bigger.

Area and other geographical data 

In area, Mexico is more than five times larger than Japan.

Mexico’s territory covers 1.96 million square kilometers, making it the 13th largest country in the world, while the area of Japan is 377,975 square kilometers, making it the 61st largest country in the world.

While Mexico is divided into 32 states (including Mexico City), Japan has 47 prefectures including the Prefecture of Tokyo, the national capital.

Japan is made up of four main islands — Honshu,Kyushu, Hokkaido and Shikoku — as well as more than 14,000 smaller ones, most of which are uninhabited. The country’s fifth biggest island is Okinawa Main Island, located south of Kyushu in the East China Sea.

While Mexico can’t compete with Japan in an island-counting contest, it does have a significant number — more than 1,300.

Mexico’s largest inhabited island is Cozumel, located in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Playa del Carmen, but the country’s biggest island overall is Tiburón Island, located in the Gulf of California off the coast of Sonora.

Mount Fuji, a national symbol of Japan, is the country’s highest peak with a summit of 3,776 meters. Located on the island of Honshu, the active volcano commonly known as “Fuji-san” is two-thirds the height of Mexico’s highest mountain, Pico de Orizaba, an active stratovolcano on the Veracruz-Puebla border. Pico de Orizaba, also known as Citlaltépetl, has a summit of 5,636 meters.

Economy 

Mexico became the the 12th largest economy in the world in 2023, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), while Japan ranked fourth.

The IMF estimates that the nominal GDP of Japan was US $4.21 trillion last year, making the Japanese economy about 2.35 times the size of the Mexican economy. Mexico’s nominal GDP was $1.79 trillion in 2023, according to the IMF.

Wealth, as measured on a per-person basis, is three times higher in Japan.

Per-capita GDP in Japan was US $34,017 in 2022, according to the World Bank, while the figure for Mexico was $11,496.

Mexico’s economy grew 3.2% last year while the GDP of Japan increased 1.9%.

Earthquakes 

Earthquakes are common in Japan and Mexico, both of which are situated along the Ring of Fire, described by National Geographic as “a path along the Pacific Ocean characterized by active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes.”

According to earthquakelist.org, which tallies earthquakes based on data from the U.S. Geological Survey as well as the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre, there were 1,839 earthquakes of magnitude 4 or higher in Mexico, or within 300 kilometers of Mexico, in 2023.

Mexico thus ranked second for the total number of earthquakes last year behind Indonesia.

Japan ranked fifth with 903 earthquakes of magnitude 4 or higher.

In 2024, Mexico and Japan currently rank first and second, respectively, for the total number of earthquakes. A 7.5-magnitude quake shook Japan on the first day of 2024, claiming over 250 lives.

The world’s fourth most powerful earthquake in recorded history was the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, which struck off the Pacific coast of Japan with a magnitude of 9.

The temblor, which triggered a tsunami, claimed close to 16,000 lives, making it the third deadliest earthquake in recorded Japanese history after the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923 and the Sanriku earthquake of 1896.      

In Mexico, the 2017 Chiapas earthquake, which measured 8.2 on the Richter scale and claimed around 100 lives, was probably the country’s most powerful quake since it became independent in the early 19th century.

However, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, which killed at least 10,000 people, is Mexico’s deadliest temblor on record.

Almost 200 years before that tragedy, an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 8.6 struck the territory now known as Mexico. The 1787 New Spain earthquake, which caused a tsunami, could thus be considered Mexico’s most powerful known earthquake.

Legislatures 

Mexicans will go to the polls this Sunday to elect a new president and 628 federal lawmakers so it’s an opportune time to compare the size of the General Congress of the United Mexican States (its official name) to that of the National Diet of Japan.

Mexico’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, has 500 seats, while Japan’s House of Representatives is slightly smaller with 465 seats.

Voters in Japan, like those in Mexico, elect representatives directly, and via a proportional representation system.

Mexico’s Senate has 128 seats while Japan’s upper house, the House of Councillors, has 248.

Thus Japan has a total of 713 federal lawmakers, 13.5% more than Mexico’s 628.

While Mexican presidents are limited to serving a single six-year term, there is no limit to the number of times a Japanese prime minister can be reelected. A single term for a Japanese prime minister lasts a maximum of four years.

UNESCO World Heritage Sites 

Mexico has a total of 35 UNESCO World Heritage sites, 10 more than Japan.

Among Mexico’s UNESCO sites are the historic center of Mexico City, the Maya city of Chichén Itzá, the Pinacate Desert, the Luis Barragán house and studio in Mexico City and the whale sanctuary of El Vizcaíno in Baja California Sur.

Among Japan’s 25 UNESCO sites are Mount Fuji, the Itsukushima Shrine, the Shiretoko National Park and “hidden Christian sites” in the Nagasaki region.

By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)

This article is part of Mexico News Daily’s “Japan in Focus” series. Read the other articles from the series here. 

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Claudia Sheinbaum, the ruling Morena party candidate and the clear frontrunner, drew more than half a million people to Mexico City’s main square, the Zócalo, for her cierre de campaña, or campaign closure, according to the Mexico City government.

Her main rival, Xóchitl Gálvez of the three-party Strength and Heart for Mexico opposition bloc, made her final campaign address in her home town of Tepatepec, Hidalgo, but before that she spoke in front of more than 20,000 people at a packed Arena Monterrey in the capital of the northern border state of Nuevo León.

The third candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the Citizens Movement party, closed his campaign with a music festival-style event at a Mexico City concert venue.

The three candidates criss-crossed Mexico during the almost three-month-long official campaign period, holding countless events in every state of the country and facing off against each other in three debates replete with accusations and personal attacks.

Campaigning is prohibited on the final three days before Mexicans cast votes to elect a new president — most likely a woman for the first time ever — and thousands of other federal, state and municipal representatives.

Sheinbaum pledges to continue and strengthen the ‘transformation’ of Mexico  

In a 40-minute speech from a stage set up in front of Mexico’s National Palace, Sheinbaum declared that López Obrador — her political mentor and close ally — has “laid the foundations and the first story” of the so-called “fourth transformation” of Mexico, but asserted that a “consolidation” of “this true change” is still required.

“That’s why I’ve made the call to build — together — the second story of the fourth transformation of public life in Mexico,” she said.

Sheinbaum, mayor of the capital for five years before officially becoming the leader of the “fourth transformation” political project last September, also pledged to “protect the legacy” of López Obrador, whose six-year term has been defined by the implementation of social programs aimed at benefiting Mexico’s most disadvantaged people, the construction of various large-scale infrastructure projects, the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, record high levels of violence, and, of course, many other things.

“The transformation will continue moving forward and, for the first time in the 200 years of the republic, women will reach the highest honor that our people can give us: the presidency of Mexico. I use the plural because I’m not arriving [to the presidency] on my own, all women are arriving,” she said.

Joined on stage by dozens of Morena devotees, including most of the party’s gubernatorial candidates and her erstwhile rivals for the presidential nomination, Sheinbaum enumerated 20 commitments of a government she leads, many of which contained several points.

She pledged that her government would be “honest” and “austere,” that it will never be subjugated by any “economic or foreign power,” that it will guarantee people’s “freedoms,” that it will deliver “all” the current social programs and that it will ensure that increases to the minimum wage always outpace inflation.

Among her other commitments, the Morena party candidate said her administration would “strengthen” the “strategic” infrastructure projects carried out by the current government, such as the Maya Train railroad and the Olmeca Refinery, “promote energy sovereignty” and “deepen the strategy of peace and security.”

Gálvez promises to combat crime and to be Mexico’s ‘bravest president’

“There will be no greater priority in my government than your security and the security of your families, your daughters and your sons,” declared Xóchitl Gálvez during her campaign event in Monterrey.

Throughout her campaign, the PAN-PRI-PRD candidate has stressed that a government she leads will implement a tough-on-crime security strategy, and asserted that López Obrador’s so-called “hugs, not bullets” approach to combating violent crime has been a failure.

“You will have the bravest president, who does confront crime,” Gálvez told supporters at Arena Monterrey, a sports and concert venue in the Nuevo León capital.

Her decision to hold her final major campaign event in Monterrey appeared to be aimed at winning back votes from Citizens Movement (MC), which holds the city’s mayorship and the governorship of Nuevo León.

Gálvez repeatedly criticized MC during her address on Wednesday, and some of the proposals she outlined were squarely aimed at voters in Nuevo León, such as a plan to close the Pemex refinery in the municipality of Cadereyta Jiménez to ensure residents of the northern state have clean air.

“The [MC] governments prefer to get ‘likes’ than deliver results,” she said, referring in particular to the state government led by the social media-savvy Governor Samuel García.

The former senator is trailing Sheinbaum by 20 points or more in several major polls, but she asserted that “they’re scared to death in the National Palace” — the seat of executive power and López Obrador’s residence — because she’s going to win.

“They’re shaking in their boots because they know there are more of us good people and we’re fed up,” said Gálvez, who was joined on stage by Monterrey mayoral candidate Adrián de la Garza.

“We’ve grown tired of their lies, of so much death, of so much injustice,” she added.

“Be assured: God is with us, have faith. If God is with me, who is against me? Long live Mexico!” Gálvez concluded before taking a flight to Hidalgo to attend a much smaller cierre de campaña in her birthplace.

“In front of us we have a false idol with feet of clay, who thinks he’s invincible,” she said at that event, referring to López Obrador.

“But like all false idols, he’s condemned to fall,” Gálvez said.

Máynez: ‘It’s not that we’re not interested in politics, but that we’re not interested in their politics’ 

Jorge Álvarez Máynez — commonly known by his second surname only — held an exuberant event at the BlackBerry auditorium in Mexico City — with beer, live music and marijuana smoke perfuming the air.

The 38-year-old candidate courted the youth vote during the campaign, and there is evidence his strategy was somewhat successful as he finished well above Gálvez, albeit well below Sheinbaum, in a large mock election held across university campuses in Mexico.

On Wednesday — exactly one week after nine people were killed in an accident at an MC event he attended in Nuevo León — Máynez asserted that he and his supporters have showed Mexico’s old political parties and officials that “it’s not that we’re not interested in politics, but that we’re not interested in their politics.”

The MC candidate, a former federal deputy who is in a distant third place in the polls, told some 3,000 attendees of the “Máynez Capital Fest” that “the country will change” under his leadership.

“Never again are we going to have a young person in jail for smoking marijuana or a woman in jail for making a decision about her own body,” Máynez said during a relatively brief speech.

Accompanied by MC’s Mexico City mayoral candidate Salomón Chertorivski, Máynez also pledged to fight for people’s right to adequate housing.

Among the candidate’s other commitments are to increase the minimum salary to 10,000 pesos (US $590) per month, shorten the standard working week to 40 hours and provide students with free access to “concerts, books, artistic shows, theater and dance” performances.

By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)

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