Disputed Mexican State Vote Stirs Political War of Nerves

Stirring a controversy with national repercussions, a political war of nerves has broken out in the Mexican state of Chihuahua over the results of recent, hotly contested state and municipal elections.

The National Action Party, apparent loser in the vote, charged widespread fraud and called for last Sunday’s elections to be annulled. Since then, National Action supporters have held a series of street demonstrations to publicize their discontent. Party leaders threatened confrontational protests, including the blockading of highways and the closing of businesses.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party, Mexico’s dominant political organization, has held its own demonstrations to claim sweeping victories for itself and to urge its opponents to accept defeat.

Soldiers Patrolling Streets

Since the July 6 vote, soldiers have patrolled the streets of major towns in Chihuahua. No violent incidents have occurred, although National Action supporters stage some kind of protest almost daily. On Sunday, a group of several hundred women marched through downtown Chihuahua city, the state capital, clanging pots and pans and chanting National Action slogans.

The Roman Catholic Church, normally silent on political matters, condemned fraud in the elections, a clear slap at the dominating party, universally called PRI for its initials in Spanish, which controls the electoral machinery in Mexico. The archbishop of Chihuahua, Adalberto Almeira, announced that, to protest fraud, no services will be held in the state’s Catholic churches next Sunday.

In official results of the governor’s race announced Sunday night, the PRI was leading with 140,655 votes to National Action’s 80,625 in four voting districts. In mayoral races, the PRI won 20 of 21 races where vote counts had been completed, including Chihuahua city.

Forty-six mayoral races have yet to be decided, including the one in Ciudad Juarez, the state’s largest city, although the PRI was ahead in that race by 11,000 votes.

Beyond their implication for Chihuahua, the elections were seen as a bellwether for future political trends in Mexico. National Action had hopes of being the first opposition party to win a state governorship in competition with the PRI. An opposition victory here might have opened the way for strengthened opposition to the PRI elsewhere in the country.

For six decades, the PRI has monopolized Mexican political life, maintaining a grip on the Mexican presidency, Senate and Congress, governorships and all but a handful of city and town halls. However, five years of economic hardship and public disgust with corruption have weakened the party’s popular appeal.

The PRI’s traditional use of fraud as part of its electoral strategy was the main issue in the Chihuahua campaign and has continued to dominate political debate since the polls closed.

Irregularities Admitted

Even the PRI, which had hoped to put the question of fraud behind it with the Chihuahua elections, admitted to voting irregularities.

“We don’t deny that there were some problems in the electoral process,” said Fernando Baeza, PRI’s candidate for governor. “The authorities exist to investigate them. We believe this will not affect the results of the election.”

During a public rally in Chihuahua city Saturday, Baeza attacked National Action militants for trying to incite a “fratricidal holy war” in the name of political protest.

Businessmen affiliated with the PRI have warned of the economic consequences for Chihuahua if political demonstrations should turn violent. Chihuahua is the site of dozens of assembly plants for foreign industries, and unrest would frighten foreign investors, they maintained.

PRI-dominated unions, meanwhile, talked of taking to the streets to counter National Action protests. “We’ll defend our interests,” said Jacobo Valenzuela, speaking for the Workers’ Confederation of Mexico, one of the PRI’s important backers within organized labor.

National Action officials and sympathizers claim that they were robbed of victory and that new elections should be held.

“The government is not in front of a submissive people, an apathetic mass,” declared Francisco Barrio, National Action’s candidate for governor. “Now it confronts conscientious and valiant citizens.”

Barrio called on his supporters to prepare to block Chihuahua’s highways on Thursday.

Last Thursday and Friday, thousands of National Action supporters marched in silence through Chihuahua city and Ciudad Juarez, on the U.S. border, the state’s largest city. Five National Action members are staging hunger strikes in various towns to protest the vote. Rhythmic horn-honking in favor of Barrio has also broken the normal desert calm of Chihuahua.

There is no clear end in sight to the controversy, although in a comparable situation last year, National Action’s protests against alleged election fraud in the northern state of Nuevo Leon eventually fizzled out.

Church Role Feared

The entry of the Catholic Church into the fray, however, is a worrisome factor for the PRI, which has tried to avoid adverse publicity in Chihuahua. “How can we deal with the church?” asked PRI national spokesman Jose Diaz Redondo. “They are untouchable.”

In his Sunday homily, in which he announced next Sunday’s statewide suspension of church services, Archbishop Almeira said: “We denounce the lies, the fraud, the voting slowdowns, the overbearing force of public officials, the supplanting (of poll-watchers), the blackmail, the threats and all sorts of arbitrariness that occurred on that day (July 6).”

No one here could remember the last time the church had suspended services for political reasons.