Election upset

last updated 8 January 2015

Mexico City

President Vicente Fox took a beating this week in midterm elections. His National Action Party lost 44 seats in the 500-seat Chamber of Deputies, weakening the president’s clout in a Congress already divided over his efforts to modernize the country. Fox swept into the presidency three years ago, promising economic reform. But the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which held the presidency for 71 years until Fox pushed it from power, picked up several seats in a comeback fueled by disillusioned voters. “Nothing has changed,” one man said. The drubbing makes it nearly impossible for Fox to pass meaningful legislation in the last three years of his term, one analyst said. “Fox is a lame duck.”