Mexican results complicate Pemex reform

Congressional results: Makeup gives presidential winner Pena Nieto less pull

Incoming Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto will struggle to overhaul the state-run oil industry, a project he has called his “signature issue,” after his party won fewer seats in Congress than pre-election polls forecast.

With more than 90% of votes counted, Jorge Carlos Ramirez, Pena Nieto’s deputy campaign chief, estimated yesterday that the Institutional Revolutionary Party-led alliance will have about 241 lawmakers in the 500-seat lower house, Bloomberg reported.

That leaves Pena Nieto dependent on the opposition to overhaul tax and labor laws, and his PRI well short of the two-thirds majority needed for constitutional changes to open up the oil industry to private investment.

He must now convince much of the opposition and his own party to back a law that he says is needed…

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