Salinas Claims Victory in Mexico Despite Absence of Official Results

Amidst confusion and admissions by his own supporters that things had not gone well, ruling party candidate Carlos Salinas de Gortari declared himself the “unquestionable” winner of Mexico’s landmark presidential election Thursday, even though no official results were available.

“We have achieved victory in the national presidential election and we achieved it in one of the most competitive and peaceful elections in our history. Our triumph is unquestionable and evident,” Salinas said.

The self-congratulations by Salinas, a Harvard-educated economist, could not obscure the evident erosion of backing for the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party he represented. The PRI, as the party is known, has ruled Mexico for 60 years. In the past, its candidates had rolled into power with little effort.

But in Wednesday’s vote, Salinas and the PRI faced strong opposition from two sides. As opponents themselves claimed success, the future of the PRI as Mexico’s sole important political player seemed suddenly in jeopardy.

Loss in Mexico City Seen

The ruling party is believed to have lost in Mexico City for the first time ever, as well as in several of Mexico’s 31 states. Salinas himself admitted times have changed.

“We are ending an era of what was practically one-party (rule) and entering a new political stage in the country with a majority party and very intense competition from the opposition,” Salinas said in a short speech to supporters at PRI headquarters.

The absence of official results more than a day after the polls closed created a sense of bewilderment and heightened suspicions of fraud. Election officials first blamed the lack of results on a breakdown of their computer system. Later they claimed it was due to “atmospheric conditions” that made it impossible to gather ballots in Mexico City.

“The whole situation is extraordinarily unusual,” said Jorge Castaneda, a political analyst at the Colegio de Mexico and a government critic. “Either they don’t know the results--or enough of them are known and they are worried.”

The PRI and the government had promised to announce early, partial results. The full official count is not due until Sunday.

Opposition leaders have charged the PRI with massive ballot tampering.

Never Lost a Senate Seat

Salinas admitted that opposition parties would pick up added seats in Mexico’s legislative bodies. He did not say how many of the 500 Chamber of Deputies seats the PRI lost or if they lost any of the 64 Senate seats. Although opposition parties have held minority seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the PRI has never lost a Senate seat or the presidency in its history.

Before the election, PRI officials predicted that Salinas would win up to 60% of the vote. Even that figure, which is still in question, would fall short of the 70% won by President Miguel de la Madrid in the 1982 election. In some past presidential elections the PRI claimed up to 100% of the vote.

The new president is scheduled to begin a six-year term beginning Dec. 1.

Leftist candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, a defector from the ruling party and son of one of Mexico’s most popular presidents, Gen. Lazaro Cardenas, claimed that he led both across the nation and in the capital. To back his claim, Cardenas announced results from 3,903 polling places in 12 states. Cardenas said he had won 54% of those votes, Salinas 21% and rightist National Action Party candidate Manuel J. Clouthier 17%.

In all, Mexicans voted at nearly 55,000 polls.

At a press conference, Cardenas said he was winning in Mexico City, the south-central state of Morelos and the western state of Michoacan, where he once served as governor.

At a separate news conference, Clouthier claimed he was winning in the capital, where discontent is high over the nation’s economic crisis. Clouthier also said he was winning in the northern states of Sonora, Chihuahua and Sinaloa--strongholds of his party--and in the central states of San Luis Potosi and Jalisco. Clouthier also gave few results.

Official Tally Awaited

PRI officials said they would not release the figures on which they based their claims of victory, adding that they would wait for the official tally from the Federal Election Commission, headed by Interior Minister Manuel Bartlett Diaz.

“We consider that to do otherwise would be to enter in a war of figures with the other parties,” said Otto Granados, a Salinas spokesman. “The Federal Election Commission is the only authority.”

In the northern state of Nuevo Leon, however, the PRI issued results based on 70% of the polls in the state, showing the PRI with a 3-to-1 lead there.

On the other hand, in Michoacan, where Cardenas appeared strong, the PRI was silent about results. The state government had promised to release partial results at 9 p.m. Wednesday. Nothing was released, and on Thursday morning, officials told reporters the count would have to come from Mexico City.

Granados conceded that the national PRI vote was proving to be less than expected. “The figures are lower than we had hoped,” he said.

Record Turnout

PRI officials said voter turnout was the highest in history. In 1982, abstentions ran about 30% nationwide and higher in Mexico City. In this election, there were about 38 million registered voters.

Political analysts believe the heavy turnout favored opposition candidates and may be partly responsible for the PRI’s hesitation to issue results. Salinas is believed to have been weakest in urban areas, where the tabulations are most readily available. The PRI apparently wanted to wait for rural results, where the party believes it is stronger.

“PRI officials, Federal Election Commission members and opposition party officials whom I have talked to agree that the PRI lost Mexico City,” said Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, a political analyst with the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for Peace. “This is hard for the PRI to swallow.”

Soon after polls closed Wednesday, Cardenas, Clouthier and Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, a minor leftist candidate, joined forces to denounce widespread fraud in the countryside--charges they repeated Thursday.