Historic Elections, Histrionic Opposition

By Jenaro Villamil Rodríguez. Mexican Press Agency.

In the federal elections of June 2, 2024, the victory of the party alliance supporting the continuation of the Fourth Transformation was as overwhelming as the defeat of the opposition alliance was brutal—marking the latter’s worst performance in many years.

Claudia Sheinbaum swept the presidential race, securing 36 million votes—nearly 60 percent of the total—with voter turnout around 61 percent. The “Let’s Keep Making History” coalition of Morena–PT–Verde won a qualified 2/3 majority in the Chamber of Deputies and came just three seats short of full control in the Senate, with 85 senators needed for a qualified majority in the upper house.

In state contests, the ruling party also dominated. It held onto Mexico City with Clara Brugada at the helm and reclaimed boroughs previously lost to the PAN and PRI. The Morena-led coalition won in 9 out of 13 states where governors were elected, pulled off a major upset in Yucatán, sailed to victory by a 2-to-1 margin in Veracruz, and captured nearly 80 percent of the vote in Tabasco and Chiapas. It also won in Morelos and Puebla.

The meaning of these elections—held just a year ago—also reflected the scale of the victory for Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who, after a six-year term marked by extreme political tension, saw his supporters defeat the entire right-wing media-political-intellectual ecosystem at the ballot box. He secured the continuation of the Fourth Transformation—something even General Lázaro Cárdenas could not achieve in 1940—and proved that “Plan C,” proposed in February 2024, had a strong chance of becoming reality.

The real “poison” for those resistant to the Fourth Transformation was precisely Plan C, which proposed deep reforms to eliminate or overhaul autonomous bodies such as the National Institute for Access to Information (INAI), Federal Commission on Competition (Cofece), and the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFETEL), and most importantly, the restructuring of the judicial branch through free and direct elections.

A year later, on Sunday, June 1, the right-wing forces once again underestimated and misread the results of last year’s elections for the Presidency and Congress—and especially misread the results of the first popular election for half of the seats for justices, magistrates, and judges in the federal judicial branch.

The interpretation is so narrow that PRI and PAN leaders announced they would request the annulment of the judicial elections due to low voter turnout. Are they aware of the absurd contradiction here? If any political group pushed for abstention and a “no vote,” it was precisely them. Are Alito Moreno and Jorge Romero willing to let the Federal Electoral Tribunal examine the impact of their calls to boycott the judicial elections?

Anger is a poor adviser. It blinds those who feel it. It destroys the ability to accept reality. It leads to underestimating opponents based on a supposed superiority that has eroded with the growing involvement of citizens and the people in key decisions shaping the transformation of the Republic. The right-wing forces are not only morally defeated—they are politically shattered, even if they still command an army of media personalities, commentators, “analysts,” and columnists who live in their own bubble world.

They don’t see the people. They don’t listen to their audiences. They are stuck in a state of denial and, like the fable of the naked king, they haven’t realized that they no longer have a crown, a scepter, or authority—just a small circle of sycophants talking to one another.

The June 1, 2025, judicial election marks a turning point for reasons that many have tried to ignore or downplay. A brief summary of these key reasons follows:

This was the first direct election not of a single person, but of multiple lists of candidates who had no funding for mass media exposure nor access to the public financing that political parties receive. It was a campaign carried out with the entire media-digital ecosystem against it and with intense—yet insufficient—political education efforts. Critics now try to downplay the success of this election by pointing to low turnout (which PRI and PAN actively encouraged), or the use of printed guides or “cheat sheets,” as if voters had simply “copied answers” on an exam or were being coerced. Once again, they underestimated the intelligence of Mexican citizens who showed up to vote in defiance of the opposition’s boycott.

Despite all the obstacles—limited publicity, a complex process with up to nine ballots, significantly fewer polling stations, negative messaging from TV networks such as Azteca openly calling for a boycott—13 million voters participated. This in a country where people are not used to knowing their judges, magistrates, or members of a new Disciplinary Tribunal that will serve as an internal watchdog body.

This is a political and democratic victory for Claudia Sheinbaum, who, despite pressure and intrigue from the right, did not back down from fulfilling the popular mandate in favor of “Plan C,” nor did she betray her own commitment to transforming the judiciary.

The “black Sunday” was for right wing forces that managed to rally just 4,000 people to march from the Monument to the Revolution to the Angel of Independence in Mexico City, led by no one, expressing discontent without offering any alternative proposal.

Do they really believe that keeping the current Supreme Court, after the sectarian, coup-like, and dishonest behavior of Chief Justice Norma Piña, will have popular support? Or that the justices who granted legal protection to the most notorious tax evader of our time—Ricardo Salinas Pliego—will be defended by the public? Or that a Court bureaucracy linked to narco-police figure Genaro García Luna deserves protection?

Do they think citizens will rally in support of circuit judges and magistrates who have granted 160 releases and legal protections to organized crime figures?

Did they imagine that 60 percent of judicial positions could remain untouched amid scandals of nepotism, influence peddling, privilege, and high salaries—delivering little for ordinary citizens?

The June 1 election was also a failure for the forces of political and criminal corruption that operate in the shadows. They tried to derail the process by encouraging leaders of the dissident teacher’s movement (CNTE) to call for a boycott of the elections, sowing doubt with political violence, and exposing their coup-minded, anti-democratic instincts.

History sometimes repeats itself—first as tragedy, then as farce. The events of June 2025 are a continuation of a story that is still being written, one that began with the votes of millions of Mexicans on June 2, 2024.