Mexico election results will impede any major reforms

Significance

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO)'s ruling National Regeneration Movement (Morena) succeeded, with its allies, in retaining a majority of seats in the lower house of Congress. It nevertheless lost the two-thirds majority it held previously. Morena appears to have won eleven of 15 gubernatorial elections, meaning it will govern half of Mexico’s states.

Impacts

• As counting ends and appeals are addressed, some results will change, but this will not undermine the elections’ legitimacy.
• Morena will continue criticising the election body but will struggle to alter electoral laws in ways that could undermine its independence.
• Morena and its allies will easily pass the 2022 budget, which requires only an absolute majority of congressional votes.