Mexico Ruling Party Winning : Claims Big Victory in Key State; Opposition Stunned

The gubernatorial candidate of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) predicted Sunday evening that he was headed for an “ample victory” in an electoral contest considered a crucial test of Mexico’s democratic system.

Rodolfo Felix Valdez, 63, a former Cabinet minister in the government of President Miguel de la Madrid, spoke to reporters hours before some polling places had closed in this vast northwestern state.

“Based on reports from our poll watchers,” he said, “we believe we will win an ample victory.” The strength of the underdog National Action Party, he added, “has been vastly exaggerated.”

The first returns reported by the State Election Commission seemed to bear out Valdez’s optimistic forecast.

In the rural communities surrounding Ciudad Obregon, the second-largest city in the state, the ruling party was leading by a margin of more than 4 to 1.

In the community of Pueblo Yaqui, where opposition gubernatorial candidate Adalberto Rosas was born, the unofficial state count showed that he lost five out of six precincts by astonishing margins: 400 to 0, 320 to 0, 400 to 140, 128 to 55 and 90 to 53. He won one precinct by a count of 800 to 100.

Rosas, a former mayor of Ciudad Obregon who has managed to attract large and enthusiastic crowds in the area at his political rallies for many years, seemed flabbergasted when confronted with the tally.

“This means they are not going to respect anything,” he said bitterly. “If they are saying I lost boxes in my own hometown by such enormous margins, there is no way they are going to respect the vote anywhere in Sonora.”

Earlier in the day, National Action Party spokesman Norberto Corella denounced the electoral process as a farce in which the ruling party stuffed ballot boxes, allowed its members to vote repeatedly, kept qualified opposition poll watchers out of polling booths and generally refused to abide by election procedures.

Although the polls were supposed to close at 7 p.m. or as soon thereafter as the last voter has cast his ballot, hundreds of expectant voters were still lined up at 8 p.m. in one precinct on Hermosillo’s outskirts.

National Action Party supporters at the scene said several precincts had been combined into one there by the state electoral commission, in order to discourage opposition voters because of the party’s strength in the neighborhood.

Rosas and Corella told reporters they witnessed or received reports about scores of apparent violations of electoral regulations throughout Sonora.

In San Luis Rio Colorado, Corella said, National Action supporters forced ruling party officials to open the voting boxes before balloting began and discovered that the boxes were already stuffed with ballots.

Gilberto Otero, a spokesman for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, said later that eight members of National Action were arrested in San Luis for “attempting to destroy voting materials.” He said they had been roaming the city’s streets, attempting to create havoc.

In Agua Prieta, Rosas told reporters, National Action advised its members late in the morning to stay away from the polls because the locations of voting precincts had been switched from schools and public buildings to the private homes of Institutional Revolutionary Party officials.

“What our people have been told to do instead is to collect signatures of all persons eligible to vote on a petition on behalf of the PAN, so we can demonstrate that most of the citizenry is on our side,” he said.

Rosas, a usually ebullient and enthusiastic campaigner, appeared downcast and dejected after he toured voting precincts in Hermosillo and Ciudad Obregon and conferred with party leaders.

“We always said that the choice in the elections was between democracy and dictatorship,” he said, “and I don’t think the result is going to be democracy.”

Earlier, Rosas said he had no doubt that he had won the highest number of votes in the gubernatorial race, but that the final official results--which do not have to be reported for seven days--would not likely reflect this.

“The fact is that these people from the PRI have become accustomed to holding power for too long, and they don’t want to let go,” he said bitterly.

This year’s elections are among the most intensely scrutinized that Mexico has undergone in many years, thanks largely to a successful effort by National Action to convince its supporters and the news media that the race was a crucial test of Mexico’s democratic system.