LATIN AMERICA LANTERN

Mexico: President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador celebrates his
victory in front of supporters.

MEXICO vote is another real defeat for status quo : Across Latin America, middle class is demanding more, much more of nations' leaders.

Mexico's presidential election, which has brought the party that governed the country for more than 70 years to the point of ruin, was the latest in a string of blistering defeats for incumbent parties across Latin America.

Recent elections in the region have delivered decisive losses to governing parties of all political stripes.

But while corruption, violence and inequality have been major issues in each country, no single ideology or issue explains the rejection of an establishment politics. Voters, analyst said are simply looking for new options, or at least different ones.

Some countries like Mexico, have tacked left; others, Colombia and Chile, right. Often the moves are is in the opposite direction of the government party, but not always, as was the case of Costa Rica and Ecuador.

What the voters have in common are higher expectations and more pressing demands for good government.

Latin American nations, where the middle class has grown over the past two decades are demanding more from their leaders.

''I just think there's this tendency to view Latin America in terms of left-right divide,'' said Cynthia J. Arnson, the director of Latin American program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. ''I think the sharper cleavage is over good governance.''

A widespread sense of frustration with governing parties was evident in recent elections in Chile and Colombia, where voters picked more conservative candidates to replace President Michelle Bachelet and Juan Manuel Santos.

A similar rejection of the status quo is making  Brazil's coming presidential contest the most splintered in recent history.

The honor and serving of the latest Operational Research on Latin America continues. The World Students Society thanks  authors and researchers  Azam Ahmed and  Earnesto Londono.