MEXICO CITY — Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a divisive former Mexico City mayor who vowed to upend Mexico’s corrupt status quo, appeared to win Sunday’s presidential elections by a big margin, moving the country’s politics sharply to the left and dealing a major blow to its established political parties.
Exit polls showed López Obrador with between 43% and 49% of the vote, well ahead of the three other candidates. José Antonio Meade, the candidate from the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, conceded defeat. Complete results were expected early Monday. The exit polls also showed López Obrador’s party, the Movement for National Regeneration, or Morena, winning several key gubernatorial races as well as the race for Mexico City mayor.
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It was too early to tell if Morena, which means dark-skinned in Spanish, would claim a majority in Congress. If it does, López Obrador would be the first Mexican president since 1997 to have a legislative majority, making it easier for him to push through his agenda.
López Obrador’s apparent victory could signal potentially far-reaching changes to the country’s foreign policy — including charting a more distant relationship with the U.S. — and to Mexico’s free-market economic model, where the leftist is likely to put a greater emphasis on using the government to try to help the poor.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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