TIJUANA (Border Report) — With more than 85 percent of votes counted, it appears Baja California will have its first woman governor, and she’s a member of the MORENA Party headed by Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Is Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda is currently the mayor of Mexicali, Baja California’s capital, and is well ahead of her two other challengers, receiving almost 50 percent of the vote.
Behind her are Jorge Hank, former mayor of Tijuana and gambling impresario with 31 percent of the vote, and Lupita Jones, a former Miss Universe, is a distant third with about 11 percent of the vote.
Ávila Olmeda is one of several MORENA Party candidates who appears to have secured victory.
Along with the governor’s office, MORENA is ahead in five mayoral races, as well as the 17 Assembly districts and the eight congressional districts from Baja California.
Nationwide, it appears MORENA will be victorious in up to 203 seats in the lower house of Congress, often referred to as the Chamber of Deputies.
If preliminary results hold, MORENA will have enough political muscle to carry out its agenda in conjunction with its majority in the Senate, which was not up for election.