MEXICO CITY—With much of Latin America seduced by the radical right, Brazil and Mexico have emerged as the region’s last major bastions of left-wing government. Yet there is a key difference between the two. Whereas Brazil’s leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva faced an uphill battle to win re-election last month, Mexico’s ruling party, the left-wing Morena, is expected to win five times as many votes as any opposition party in next year’s legislative elections.
How Mexico’s left has managed to retain strong support is a key question of contemporary Latin American politics. The most likely answer centers on the ruling Morena party’s pragmatic brand of left-wing politics, which combines bold redistributive policies, greater security, and a willingness to compromise in the name of both.