Mexico’s elite struggles to comprehend left’s landslide election win

The day after Mexico’s leftwing ruling party Morena won a landslide victory in presidential, congressional and state elections, one executive stayed in bed all afternoon eating ice cream to try to cope. A wealthy woman in Mexico City told friends it was time to “move to the house in Houston”, while another business leader said his WhatsApp chats were marked by a mood of “collective suicide”.

President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum and Morena’s victory last Sunday was not a surprise, but the scale of their triumph was. Sheinbaum vaulted 31 points clear of her nearest challenger, centre-right entrepreneur Xóchitl Gálvez, and Morena is now poised to push through radical changes to the constitution after greatly increasing its majority in congress.