Election Watch: May and June 2024

Can Claudia Sheinbaum Emerge from AMLO’s Shadow?

She was just elected Mexico’s first woman president in a landslide. The future of Mexico’s democracy rests on whether she can break from her predecessor’s ways and carve her own democratic path.

By?León Krauze

On Sunday, Claudia Sheinbaum won Mexico’s presidency in a landslide, making history. In October, she will become Mexico’s first woman president. This election result is also significant for Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), Sheinbaum’s predecessor and political mentor. A clear majority of Mexicans favored AMLO’s project at the polls, voting not only for Sheinbaum but also for the legislative contingent of her coalition. This has granted her an overwhelming advantage in Congress, opening the doors to deep reforms that could fundamentally alter Mexico’s constitution and, with it, the country.

To learn more about this election, read the full essay .

Election Outcomes

Chad: In the May 6 presidential election, interim president Mahamat Idriss Déby of the ruling Patriotic Salvation Movement won in the first round with 61.3 percent of the vote. Déby took power in 2021 after rebels killed his father, President Idriss Déby, who seized the presidency via a coup in the early 1990s. Prime Minister Succès Masra of the Transformers party came in second with 18.5 percent. International rights groups have cautioned that the election appeared “neither credible, free nor democratic.”

Dominican Republic: Presidential and legislative elections were held on May 19. Turnout was 54.3 percent. In the presidential contest, incumbent Luis Abinader of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) won with 57.4 percent of the vote; former president Leonel Fernández of the People’s Force (FP) came in second with 28.9 percent.

In the legislative contest, 178 of 190 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and all 32 seats in the Senate were at stake. The PRM won 146 seats in the Chamber — up 60 from the last election in 2020 — and 25 seats in the Senate. The FP won 28 seats in the Chamber — up from the 3 it received in 2020 — and 3 seats in the Senate. The Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) lost 62 seats in the Chamber, retaining only 13, and secured none in the Senate. Smaller parties split the remainder in both houses of Congress.

Iceland: In the June 1 presidential election, businesswoman Halla Tomasdottir, running as an independent, won with 34.1 percent of the vote. Former prime minister Katrin Jakobsdottir of the Left-Green Movement came in second with 25.2 percent of the vote, and independent Halla Hrund Logadottir came in third with 15.7 percent. Nine other candidates split the remainder. Voter turnout was the highest since 1996 at 80.8 percent.

India: Elections for the 543-seat Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, took place from April 19 to June 1 in seven phases. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 95 seats, while the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 291 seats. This win gives the NDA a majority in Parliament and Prime Minister Narendra Modi a third consecutive term in office. The opposition INDIA bloc, led by the Indian National Congress, won 236 seats. Smaller parties split the remaining 17. Turnout was 66 percent.

Iran: Runoff elections were held on May 10 for 45 of the 290 seats in the Islamic Consultative Assembly. Hardline conservatives won 33 seats; having already secured 200 seats in the first round, this second round gave the faction full control over parliament. Turnout was low at around 8 percent.

Lithuania: In the presidential runoff on May 26, President Gitanas Naus?da won with 74.5 percent of the vote. His opponent, Prime Minister Ingrida ?imonyt? of the ruling Homeland Union party, received 24.1 percent of the vote. Voter turnout was 49.2 percent.

Mexico: On June 2, former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum of the ruling MORENA party won with between 58.3 and 60.7 percent of the vote, according to a rapid sample count by Mexico’s electoral authority. Sheimbaum will become the country’s first woman president, and won with the highest vote share in Mexico’s democratic history. Xóchitl Gálvez, representing a coalition of opposition parties, came in second with around 28 percent of the vote, and Jorge Alvarez Maynez of the Citizens’ Movement took third with around 10 percent. Final results will be announced by June 8. Elections for the country’s 128-seat Senate and 500-seat Chamber of Deputies also took place on June 2, and MORENA is likely to win majorities in both houses. Turnout was around 60 percent.

North Macedonia: In the country’s runoff presidential election on May 8, law professor Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova of the center-right Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization–Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE) won with 69 percent of the vote. She will be the country’s first woman president. Incumbent president Stevo Pendarovski of the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) received 31 percent.

Parliamentary elections were also held on May 8. At stake were all 120 seats in the unicameral Assembly. The VMRO-DPMNE–led coalition headed by Hristijan Mickoski won 58 seats, 3 short of an outright majority but up 14 from the previous elections in 2020. The Social Democrat–led coalition won 18 seats, 28 fewer than in the previous elections. The ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) won 19 seats. Smaller parties shared the remaining 25 seats. Turnout was 47.5 percent.

Panama: General elections were held on May 5, and turnout was 77.6 percent. In the presidential contest, right-wing former security minister José Raúl Mulino of the Achieving Goals (RM) party won with 34.2 percent of the vote. Anticorruption candidate Ricardo Lombana of the Another Way Movement (MOCA) came in second with 24.6 percent, and former president Martín Torrijos of the Popular Party (PP) came in third with 16 percent. Mulino was the stand-in candidate for former president Ricardo Martinelli, who was banned from running after being imprisoned for money laundering. Mulino’s candidacy, alleged as illegitimate since he was not elected in a primary, was confirmed by the Supreme Court only two days before the election.

At stake in the legislative contest were all 71 seats in the unicameral National Assembly. RM led with 14 seats, the Democratic Revolutionary Party followed with 13, and the Paname?ista Party and Democratic Change each won 8. Independents took 20 seats, and smaller parties split the remainder.

South Africa: The ruling African National Congress (ANC) led by Cyril Ramaphosa lost its thirty-year majority in the 400-seat National Assembly in elections on May 29. The party won only 40.2 percent and 159 seats, down from 230 seats in the previous election in 2019, and will have to enter into a coalition to form a government. The Democratic Alliance (DA) won 21.8 percent and 87 seats; the MK Party won 14.6 percent and 58 seats; and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) won 9.5 percent and 39 seats. Smaller parties shared the remainder. Voter turnout was 58.6 percent.

Togo: The ruling Union for the Republic (UNIR) party of President Faure Gnassingbé won 108 out of 113 seats in National Assembly elections on April 29. Ten days earlier, the Assembly approved a constitutional reform that shifted the government from a presidential to a parliamentary system and eliminated presidential elections. The National Assembly and a proposed new Senate will instead appoint a figurehead president. A new prime minister position (President of the Council of Ministers) that will automatically go to the majority-party leader will hold true executive power and not be term limited. Opposition parties have decried the election as a sham and the new constitution as an “institutional coup” that will allow Gnassingbé to extend his family’s six-decade political dynasty. Protests and election observers were banned, and civil and media freedoms were repressed in the lead-up to the elections. Voter turnout was 61 percent.