Pro-family campaigners were celebrating victory after Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto suffered substantial losses in state elections after he announced plans to legalise gay marriage and enable gay couples to adopt.
Voting held on Sunday in 12 states across Mexico showed the ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), leading in only five states. The election results are expected to indicate the outcome of 2018’s presidential election.
PRI’s main rival, the conservative National Action Party (PAN) appears to have won the governor’s offices in the other seven states, although the results await final certification by Mexico’s National Electoral Institute.
Leading pro-family advocates have described the situation as a “protest vote” against the PRI’s policies. After Peña Nieto welcomed a constitutional reform to recognise gay marriage and amendments to the Federal Civil Code to allow gay adoption, more than 1,000 organisations joined together to form the National Front for the Family (FNF).
“The important part was that in less than three weeks an organisation was created that was able to mobilise an entire country against an initiative of the president attacking the family, calling for a protest vote against him and his party,” President of the Mexican Council for the Family, Juan Dabdoub, told Catholic News Agency.
“This doesn't end here, because this same week we are going to meet to plan actions that will continue until the 2018 presidential elections,” he added.
Carlos Alberto Ramírez Ambríz, spokesman for the National Front for the Family, said that Peña Nieto “launched an attack against the family thinking that there would be no consequences for their political operations. However, Mexico has spoken at the ballot box; the affront against the family has cost the president and the party that supports him dearly.”
As well as issues affecting the family, Mexicans are growing increasingly discontent with PRI’s inability to manage a struggling economy, rampant corruption and violent crime. “Mexican society is tired of the corruption, impunity and arrogance that the PRI represents in Mexico and that fatigue was seen reflected in the recent elections,” said Ambríz.
But, even after Sunday’s setbacks, the PRI remains the major political force in the national legislature and holds governors seats in at least 16 of the country’s 31 states and the federal district of Mexico City.
The presidential election is set for July 2018.
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