Mexico Ruling Party Runs Strong in Poll

An opinion poll says the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party will win three times as many votes as its opposition in the Mexico City area during July 7 congressional elections.

Israel Galan, who helped conduct the poll over a 10-day period for the Mexican Sociolgists Union, said the PRI would take 46% of the vote in the metropolitan area of 18 million people.

Twenty-nine percent of the more than 2,200 people polled said they would not vote in the elections for congressmen and seven state governorships, and 5% said they were still undecided, Galan said.

Mexico’s strongest opposition party, the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, will take only 16% of the vote, pollsters said, with the Communist Unified Socialist Party expected to take 10%.