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Mexico's ruling center-right Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) maintained its majority lead following Sunday's midterm elections, but the opposition made significant inroads, the preliminary count showed Monday.
The newly-established left-leaning National Regeneration Movement Party (Morena) won five of Mexico City's 16 boroughs, an important achievement for a newcomer in the country's key political battleground.
Morena, founded by leftist veteran and two-time presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has also clinched 17 seats so far in Mexico City's local congress, the Legislative Assembly of the Federal District (ALDF).
Morena's gains may mean little to the PRI, but are devastating for the country's formerly leading leftist group, the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), which lost substantial support in its traditional stronghold Mexico City.
"PRD loses control of the Federal District," Mexico's El Economista daily headlined an article on the electoral results.
The PRD has so far won six boroughs and 15 seats on the 66-member assembly (40 won by direct vote and 26 by proportional representation).
Obrador was one of the founders of the PRD, but left the party after it formed an alliance with the PRI.
The PRI, in alliance with Mexico's paradoxically conservative Green Party (PVEM), won three boroughs and the same number of seats in the local congress.
The election also marked the first time independent candidates that are not aligned with any party were allowed to compete. In Mexico's industrial powerhouse of the northern Mexican state Nuevo Leon, one independent candidate managed a major upset by winning the governorship.
Jaime Rodriguez Calderon won the top job with just over 48 percent of the votes. His victory was due to public disenchantment with the two parties that have historically ruled the state -- the PRI and the pro-business National Action Party (PAN).
"The outcome of local elections in Nuevo Leon sends a powerful message to the nation and the political parties in terms of the plurality and representation citizens are looking for," Mexico's Milenio daily said.
However, Mexico's first-ever independent governor, who boasted he would send those two parties "on vacation" if he won, will have to govern with a local congress dominated by those two parties, which together hold nearly 60 percent of the seats, independent political website Animal Politico noted.
"El Bronco (nickname of Rodriguez) has no alternative but to govern with the bipartisanship he fought," the site said.
Still, "the independent candidates are here to stay," El Economista said, reporting that about a score of "indie" politicians are poised to win local races to become mayors or deputies at the federal or local levels.
Official results are not expected until Wednesday. Enditem
