Mexico's ruling party elects new leader to shape post-Lopez Obrador era

Mexico's ruling Morena party on Sunday elected Interior Secretary Luisa Maria Alcalde as its new leader and awarded the son of outgoing Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador a high-ranking position. Alcalde, a 37-year-old lawyer who hails from a storied Mexican political family, will be tasked with helping consolidate disparate wings of the Morena movement without its founder, Lopez Obrador, who has been a towering figure in Mexican politics in recent years. Since Lopez Obrador founded Morena in 2011, the party has soared in popularity to become an electoral juggernaut, drawing comparisons with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that ruled Mexico for seven decades before the return of democracy in 2000.