While most of Latin America is shifting to the right, there is a potential exception that may soon keep US policymakers awake at night: the possibility of a populist leftist victory in Mexico’s 2018 elections.
Judging from the stinging defeat of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the June 5 local elections in 14 Mexican states, Mexicans may be ripe for an anti-establishment leader. And if likely Republican candidate Donald Trump wins the US elections, the resulting nationalistic backlash in Mexico would make a leftist populist victory even more likely. (I’ll come back to this in a moment.)
On June 5, Mexican voters sent a clear message that they are tired of the PRI’s corruption, and its inability to combat street crime and improve the economy. The clear winner of the local elections was the center-right National Action Party (PAN), which won seven governorships alone or in alliance with smaller parties, and the leftist MORENA, which won Mexico City’s election for a constitutional assembly.