Mexico City: Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto`s ruling party and its allies will increase their majority in the lower house of Congress following midterm elections despite his unpopularity, according to official estimates.
Pena Nieto`s centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the Green Party and the New Alliance will get 260 seats in the 500-member chamber of deputies, up from 251 today, according to a National Electoral Institute document.
The PRI actually lost 11 seats in the June 7 election, dropping from 214 to 203, but its alliance got a boost from the Greens, who won 47 seats despite $30 million in fines for violating campaign rules.
Together, the three parties garnered around 40 percent of the vote, with the PRI winning the most with 29.2 percent.
The absolute majority will allow the PRI and its allies to pass legislation without compromising with the conservative and leftist opposition, even as Pena Nieto`s popularity has fallen to around 40 percent.
The congressional seats, which electoral institute council member Arturo Sanchez Gutierrez published on Twitter late Monday, are not final because Mexico`s elections tribunal must rule on challenges in the coming weeks.
The election hit the opposition parties hard, with the the conservative National Action Party taking 108 seats compared to 113 today.
Mired by internal divisions and defections, the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) will get 56 deputies compared to 99 now.
The PRD`s defeat was attributed to the rise of the nascent Morena party of former PRD member and two-time leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, which got 35 seats in its first election.
