Mexico’s López Obrador loses some of his "Teflon" in midterm elections. Mexico's ruling political coalition is projected to lose its qualified majority in the lower house of Congress after a poor showing in midterm elections Sunday, according to initial figures released by the government. 

López Obrador's left-leaning political party, Morena, won about 35% of the vote. Morena and its governing partner, Partido Verde, are expected to win between 265 and 292 of the 500 seats in the lower house, according to preliminary figures from the National Electoral Institute (INE). 

 

López Obrador’s opponents framed the vote as one of the most important in recent Mexican history. They fear he wants to steer this country - the No. 1 U.S. trading partner - back toward the kind of one-party authoritarian system that prevailed for most of the 20th century. Critics compare the Mexican leader to populists such as Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Salvadoran leader Nayib Bukele, who have demonized adversaries and rebuffed challenges to their authority by the judiciary.

Up to four trucks carrying avocados are stolen every day in the violent Mexican state of Michoacán. Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, took office six months ago promising a new strategy to fight crime, but violence has continued unabated across the country. “There are at least 20 illegal armed groups violently competing for territories and markets in the state.

Yet not a single actor has been able to establish dominion over the others. This means war has become perpetual and extremely costly” for the criminal groups, Ernst - senior analyst Mexico for the International Crisis Group - said.

He promised to be the president of "hugs, not bullets," and to bring peace to Mexico after years of surging criminal violence. But Andrés Manuel López Obrador is facing a public outcry after a massacre at a birthday party that has revived a sense that the country is spinning out of control. The attack stood out for its brutality.

Gunmen burst into the birthday celebration in the southern state of Veracruz on Friday night, opening fire and killing five women, seven men and a 1-year-old boy, according to the state security chief, Hugo Gutierrez.

Deputy Director of Airports Supervision Juan Manuel Hernández Palafox has been linked to organized crime groups and facilitating the passage of drug shipments through Mexico City’s International Airport, as well as airports in Cancún, Guadalajara and Tijuana, Proceso reported. New documents allege that criminal organizations from Colombia, Peru and Venezuela send cocaine and heroin shipments to the designated Mexican airports.

In 2009, Hernández Palafox, then commander of Mexico’s federal police, was prosecuted on organized crime charges, after a video emerged exposing alleged relationships between himself and various other public officials and the Gulf Cartel. He was officially exonerated in 2010.

Mexico is the United States' third-largest trading partner after Canada and China, so the impact of a border closing would be widespread and immediate. And the anticipated avocado shortages would just be one part of it. Who could come off worse? "It is a bit like a murder-suicide," says Andrew Selee, the president of the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that describes itself as non-partisan. "You can hold a gun to the Mexican government, but it ricochets right back on to the US economy."
Mexico's Foreign Minister, Marcelo Ebrard, tweeted on Friday that the country will "not act on the basis of threats". The Mexican President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has also urged prudence. "We are not going get confrontational with the government of the United States," he said.

What will the impact be? Many Mexicans and US citizens live and work across the two countries. Many are enrolled in programs - such as the Trusted Traveler Program - that allow them to fast-track immigration lines.

Drop by drop, gallon by gallon, thieves have been draining the pipelines and coffers of the Mexican government. Last year, $3 billion worth of fuel was stolen from Pemex, Mexico's state-owned oil company, according to the country's new president. But a crackdown by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has left many ordinary Mexicans struggling to find gas.President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office in December, confirmed on Friday that less fuel was being sent through pipelines. "I ask citizens for understanding and support, because we need to solve this problem together. We are trying to get it resolved soon," Lopez Obrador said in a televised speech.

Obrador has vowed to tackle theft "outside and inside" Pemex, or Petroleos Mexicanos, which estimates that fuel worth more than 146 billion pesos ($7.40 billion) has been stolen since 2016 alone. A witness said many gas stations in the city of Guadalajara in Jalisco state were closed on Sunday, including those operated by state oil firm Pemex, Spain's Repsol and BP.

In his first financial declaration since taking office on 1st of December 2018 Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has revealed that he has a little less than $23,000 in savings. "I’ve never been interested in money," López Obrador, 65, told reporters. "I fight for ideals, for principles." The title to a 1.2-hectare ranch inherited from his parents in southern Chiapas state, meanwhile, is already in the names his four sons, he said.

López Obrador, popularly know as Amlo, has promised to govern with frugality, and cut his own pay to about $65,000 a year - less than half of what his predecessor made. He pulled a US $2 bill out of his wallet – given to him as a good luck token by a Mexican living in the US – insisting it and a 200 peso note was all he had with him. Amlo's allies in Congress followed up his pay cut by approving a bill forbidding public servants from earning more than the president.