Presidential candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota
The vast majority of the 40,000 Mexican expatriates who voted in Sunday’s election cast ballots against President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto, reported the Associated Press. Many immigrants said Monday that they were shocked his Institutional Revolutionary Party — which largely convinced them to leave their homeland — has returned to power.
More than 40,000 Mexicans voted from 91 countries in Sunday’s elections. Mexican immigrants gained the right to vote in their country’s elections in 2006.
The vast majority voted for Josefina Vázquez Mota, of President Felipe Calderon’s National Action Party, who garnered 17,169 votes from abroad, according to preliminary results released Monday from Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute.
López Obrador got 15,878 votes among voters from abroad, while Peña Nieto received 6,359.
Peña Nieto immediately went to work to counter claims that the old PRI was back, saying in his victory speech: ‘‘We’re a new generation. There is no return to the past.’’
He talked of security, commerce and infrastructure, but didn’t bring up the traditional Mexican issue of U.S. immigration reform to help the 12 million Mexicans who live in the United States.
Peña Nieto said he wanted ‘‘a relationship that will allow the productive integration of North America.’’
