Mexico’s governing coalition gets 73% of seats in Congress after winning just 60% of votes
Mexico’s electoral institute voted on Friday, August 23, to give the governing Morena party and its allies about 73% of seats in the lower house of Congress, though the coalition won less than 60% of the votes in the June 2 elections.
The ruling, which can be challenged in court, would give the governing coalition the two-thirds majority it needs for the Chamber of Deputies to approve changes in Mexico’s constitution. If the ruling stands, Morena and it allies would have about 364 seats in the 500-seat body.
Critics said that would give Morena more power in Congress than it won at the voting booth.
The dispute involves a law that assigns some seats in Congress on the basis of proportional representation. That was designed to give smaller parties some seats in Congress, based on their national vote percentage, even if they couldn’t win individual congressional district races.
But the law also stipulates that the proportional seats can’t be used to give any party a majority in Congress.
Morena apparently got around that by “lending” some of its winning congressional district candidates to two allied smaller parties. The smaller parties aren’t subject to the no-majority rule, but they vote in lockstep with Morena.
