Salinas Takes Clear Lead in Mexico Race : With 75% of Votes In, Opposition Still Says Election Was Rigged

With 75% of the vote counted, Mexico’s ruling party candidate took a clear lead today in the nation’s presidential election, according to official figures, but the opposition said the count was rigged.

The Federal Electoral Commission announced that Carlos Salinas de Gortari had won 52.9% of the vote in last Wednesday’s election.

In second place was Cuauhtemoc Cardenas of the center-left National Democratic Front, with 29.1%, and third was Manuel J. Clouthier of the right-wing National Action Party, with 16.7%.

During a heated all-night session at the election commission, opposition party representatives angrily disputed the figures read out by officials, claiming the count had been rigged.

‘Serious Damage’ Feared

National Action Party President Luis Alvarez said the failure to recognize the extent of opposition gains was extremely grave.

“These results will cause serious damage to the country and the people will become frustrated and believe that the electoral process is not capable of facilitating the changes the country needs,” he said.

The National Action Party has already launched a civil disobedience program, including the blocking of roads to the northern border with the United States, and Cardenas said over the weekend that he will fight to have the vote validated by all legal means available.

Cardenas on Saturday released figures, which he said had come from government sources, giving him 38.8% to Salinas’ 32.7%.

Vote Thefts Charged

During Sunday night’s session, representatives of the Popular Socialist Party (PPS), which backs Cardenas, accused Salinas’ Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of seizing ballot boxes after they had been sealed at polling places on Wednesday and altering the vote.

There were also opposition complaints over long delays in giving results, and charges that this reflected manipulation by the PRI. Interior Minister Manuel Bartlett Diaz, head of the election commission, denied that the delays were due to vote-rigging and pointed out that many ballots had to be transported from remote areas.

This did not satisfy the opposition, which pointed out that there were also delays in announcing the count from the federal district of Mexico City, where the commission is located.

But just on the basis of the official count, the opposition has done better in these elections than at any time in recent memory. President Miguel de la Madrid won in 1982 with 71% and his two predecessors were unopposed.

PRI officials said on Sunday that they expected to lose the presidential vote in the federal district as well as the states of Mexico, Michoacan, Guerrero and Morelos.