Mexico: Leftist candidate Lopez Obrador wins presidential election

Left candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the National Regeneration Movement has won the presidential elections in Mexico, according to the National Electoral Institute. Earlier, exit polls showed Mexican voters overwhelmingly backed Lopez Obrador in Sunday's presidential vote.

One exit poll by Parametria showed Lopez Obrador winning between 53% and 59% of the vote, putting him ahead of his rivals from Mexico's traditional ruling parties.

Shortly following the initial results, Jose Antonio Meade of Mexico's ruling centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) conceded defeat.

Obrador will have to address unprecedented levels of violence in Mexico, and Donald Trump

Political violence has cast a bloody shadow over the Mexican election campaign. Since last fall, 130 politicians and candidates have been killed, but experts doubt that the violence will end after Sunday’s vote.

With Donald Trump in the White House, US-Mexican relations have also plummeted to abysmal depths. But with the two countries’ fates intertwined, observers say Mexico has the means to stand up to its powerful neighbor in the north.
 "Even for building a wall you need Mexican workers," Mexico's richest man and entrepreneur Carlos Slim had said when Trump took office in Washington.

Trump has ceaselessly humiliated the US's southern neighbor not just during his campaign, but also during his first year in office. The building of a wall along the Mexican border to keep out illegal immigrants and curtail the drug trade is one of Trump's most important campaign promises.

Many voices in Mexico are now calling for more self-confidence from their leaders. They're saying their country should stop acting like a deer in the headlights when it comes to the US. "Mexico's foreign policy is way too soft and toothless," says Sergio Aguayo, a political scientist at Mexico City's renowned Colegio de Mexico. That was especially obvious in the case of the separated migrant children, Aguayo says.

President-elect Obrador will have his hands full with troubles at home, and with his neighbour to the north.

With agency inputs