María Elena Orantes

María Elena Orantes López (born 24 July 1968) is a Mexican politician from the Citizens' Movement party. She serves as a deputy of the LXIII Legislature of the Mexican Congress representing the third electoral region and the state of Chiapas.

Career In 1988, Orantes López joined the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), a year before graduating with a degree in communication sciences.

In 2000, voters sent Orantes López to the LX Legislature of Chiapas for a three-year term. She presided over the Commission for the Care of Women and Children. The cause for the strain was the national PRI's decision to seek the PVEM and Nueva Alianza as coalition members. As part of the decision, Manuel Velasco of the PVEM was named the gubernatorial candidate for Chiapas. In her last meeting with Enrique Peña Nieto, the PRI's 2012 presidential candidate, told her, "María Elena, we have a commitment with the Green Party. Manuel Velasco will be the candidate. You can't be the gubernatorial candidate because you are a woman. That makes you vulnerable."

Undeterred by the PRI's decision, a newly independent Orantes López ran under a coalition of the left, formed by the PRD, PT and Movimiento Ciudadano. Voters, however, elected Velasco. She joined MC the next year.