Mexico: Institutional Revolutionary Party wins midterm elections.

The results of Mexico's midterm primary elections, announced on June 8, showed that President Enrique Peña Nieto's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won the election held on June 7.

The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of President Enrique Peña Nieto won the election. (Source: Bloomberg)

The PRI party has maintained its minimal majority in the House of Representatives, despite protests and a sharp decline in government approval ratings.

According to Mexico's National Electoral Institute, the PRI party won approximately 29.87 to 30.85% of the vote, followed by the National Action Party (PAN) with 21.47 to 22.7% of the vote.

The midterm elections, which will elect 500 seats in the House of Representatives, 9 of the 31 governors, and hundreds of mayors and local officials, are seen as a major test for President Nieto's government.

In the 2012 election, the PRI, in alliance with the Green Party and the New Alliance Party (PANAL), received 42% of the vote and won 251 out of 500 seats in the House of Representatives.

The June 7 election was threatened by a wave of violence despite thousands of federal soldiers and police officers being deployed at polling stations.

In several volatile southern states such as Guerrero, Chiapas, and Oaxaca, radical protesters burned ballot boxes, documents, and polling stations.

The state of Guerrero has a teacher training college where the 43 missing students were enrolled. The protesters, mostly teachers, are demanding higher salaries, an end to teacher certification exams, and an investigation into the disappearance of the 43 students since September 2014, despite the federal prosecutor's final conclusion that they were murdered by a drug cartel.

(According to VNA)