Opposition Party’s Win in Ensenada: Trend or Fluke?

The political posters have been removed, but this seaport city is still abuzz about last month’s mayoral elections. The reason: The candidate of the National Action Party, known by its Spanish acronyms as PAN, has been declared the winner, handing the opposition party its first solid beachhead in Baja California.

“They tried to say I was a crook, a drunk, a smuggler,” said Ernesto Ruffo Appel, the mayor-elect, recounting a campaign that was at times very dirty.

“We needed a change,” said a fish vendor, expressing his fatigue with the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI, which has dominated Mexican politics for more than half a century.

“We’ll be back at the next election,” vowed a city official and PRI loyalist. “We have to be.”

Ruffo’s victory has spurred intense discussions throughout the border state. PAN officials hope it is the start of a movement; PRI strategists dismiss it as a fluke, with some asserting the victory was financed by right-wing elements of the Roman Catholic Church and the U.S. government.

Ruffo’s election comes at a time when PAN forces throughout northern Mexico are mounting a considerable challenge to the PRI. In the State of Chihuahua, across the border from Texas and New Mexico, so-called panistas have taken to the streets claiming massive fraud in electoral contests there.

In Mexican border regions, a number of factors--the presence of a thriving business elite, traditional norteno independence and close contacts with the United States--have combined to create a particularly fertile ground for PAN, a rightist party with its roots in the conservative business community. Assisting PAN’s emergence is widespread discontent with the nation’s economic crisis and a general disgust with corruption, which is identified with the ruling PRI.

Others Have Won

Though Ruffo’s election marks the first time PAN has held a city hall in Baja California, the opposition party has won numerous mayoral seats in other parts of Mexico. But no opposition party has ever won a governor’s post or the coveted presidency. Few analysts believe the PRI is committed to a two-party system in the U.S. sense, and mayor-elect Ruffo is clearly suspicious.

“I believe it’s too early to say that there’s a true democratic opening,” said Ruffo.

Despite PAN’s recent gains, there is also considerable doubt about whether the party’s new-found strength represents a true embrace of the its conservative doctrine. Independent analysts universally say PAN’s victory is more a reflection of Ruffo’s personal popularity and a widespread disenchantment with corruption, declining living standards and the ruling PRI.

“I voted for Ruffo, not for PAN,” is a frequent comment heard here.

“People voted against the economic crisis,” said a PRI official here, “they didn’t vote for the PAN.”

Business-Oriented Agenda

Indeed, when questioned, few voters could describe PAN’s conservative, business-oriented agenda, which critics describe as anti-worker and anti-peasant. But, as in Chihuahua, PAN’s anti-corruption rhetoric seems to have found a receptive audience.

“The PRI is robbing the country,” said Ramon Cuevas, a curbside fish salesman who described himself as a former PRI loyalist.

In Ensenada, there is some precedent for political iconoclasm. Three years ago, Ensenada voters elected Baja California’s first opposition mayor--but he ran under the banner of the left-wing Socialist Workers Party.

“In three years, Ensenada voters have gone from electing a member of a leftist party to electing someone from a rightist party,” said J. L. Perez Canchola, director of an immigration study institute in Tijuana and an unsuccessful mayoral candidate there. “Obviously, these are votes for the candidates and not for the parties’ programs.”

Although disappointed about not winning the campaign, PRI officials have attempted to put the Ensenada vote to a propaganda advantage. “Ensenada demonstrates that we do have a true democracy,” said Miguel Angel Torres, chief spokesman for the governor’s office. “We have clean elections here.”

Victories Not Acknowledged

After debating the reasons for PAN’s victories, political discussions here typically turn to the next burning question: Just why did the PRI-dominated government agree to recognize PAN’s victory? Analysts say that in a number of past elections, notably the 1968 campaign in Tijuana and the 1983 contest in Mexicali, the government refused to acknowledge PAN victories.

The mayor-elect maintains that PAN’s thorough campaign left the ruling party no alternative. Observers describe PAN’s effort here as one of the most well-organized ever seen in the state, complete with computer printouts, mass rallies and hundreds of election-day poll-watchers.

“We didn’t allow them the chance to manipulate or change the results of the election,” said Ruffo. “If they had looked to change the results, there would have been a very high cost.”

Moreover, since Ensenada lacks the political importance of Mexicali, the state capital, and Tijuana, the most populous Mexican city along the border, recognizing PAN’s victory may have simply been “throwing bones” to the opposition in the words of one political scientist.

Ruffo is spending much of his time planning his three-year administration, which begins Dec. 1. The mayor’s post is the first elective office for Ruffo, a former general manager of the large Zapata fish mill. Ruffo has a degree in administration from the Technological Institute in Monterrey.

To Improve City Services

Improving city services is his No. 1 priority and he talks generally about efforts to better services and cut down on municipal corruption.

Nonetheless, Ruffo’s popularity is not likely to translate into dramatic changes for residents of this huge municipality spread over 21,000 square miles and somewhat akin to an American county. The great majority of the 300,000 residents reside in the City of Ensenada. A foundering fishing business, battered by low tuna prices, remains the dominant industry, followed by tourism and agriculture.

In the past 20 years, the exploding population has transformed the once-sleepy fishing village into a big city plagued by all the problems of urban Latin America: Crime, poverty and, for many, lack of vital services such as public transportation, running water and electricity.

Ruffo, sounding like a Reagan Republican, also talks about a possible program, sort of a Mexican “workfare,” in which squatter residents would do community service in order to secure titles to land.

“One of the important beliefs of (PAN) is that the individual must help himself, and not wait for some higher power to help him,” said Ruffo.