Voters Go to Polls as Mexico Tests Reform

With unprecedented scrutiny from the media and opposition political parties, voters went to the polls Sunday in five Mexican states, three of them highly competitive elections seen as key tests of Mexico’s commitment to democratic reform.

Major attention was focused on the governor’s race here in Baja California and on contests for state legislatures in Michoacan and Chihuahua. These are considered critical measures of the reformist impulse of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI, and its national standard-bearer, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

Some early unofficial results from Tijuana, Baja California’s most populous city, had the opposition National Action Party winning the governor’s race by a substantial margin--a result that, if it stands up, would signal a historic change in Mexican politics.

President Salinas, who critics say owes his position to a rigged vote last year, has vowed to clean up elections nationwide as part of a perestroika- style apertura, or opening, of a Mexican political process that has long been dominated by the PRI.

In the 60 years since it was founded, the PRI has never officially lost a governor’s seat, a state legislature or the presidency, although opposition leaders say numerous elections have been stolen. Baja was the only governor’s seat contested Sunday.

State legislatures were also chosen in Baja, Campeche and Zacatecas, and some mayors’ posts were on the ballot in Baja and Chihuahua.

Even before initial voting tallies were released, representatives of both major political parties, the PRI and PAN--as the National Action Party is known from its Spanish initials--declared that their respective candidates had likely emerged victorious. The PRI even held a victory party in its Tijuana headquarters.

Election results were slow to filter in from Baja on Sunday night, in part because of widespread confusion in a number of Tijuana precincts.

By 8 p.m., fully two hours after the polls were due to close, more than 100 would-be voters in the outlying community of Sanchez Taboada were still waiting in line. Opposition groups attributed the confusion to a concerted PRI effort to hold down electoral turnout in the neighborhood, which is a stronghold of anti-government sentiment.

The election in Michoacan also tested the Democratic Revolutionary Party of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, whose leftist coalition in last year’s presidential elections confronted Mexican officialdom with the most serious electoral challenge in the history of the PRI. Michoacan is Cardenas’ home state.

The PRI lost both Baja and Michoacan in the presidential election and has run long, expensive campaigns in an effort to win them back.

In Michoacan, the PRI-claimed victory in 10 of 18 electoral districts but was unable to provide figures to back up the assertion. The ruling party accused Cardenas of “proselytizing” on election day in the company of journalists. Irate Mexican reporters protested the charge during a ruling party press conference and demanded figures to back up the victory claim.

It was still unclear whether PRI will take a majority of the state legislature. There are 18 direct-vote seats and six seats to be distributred proportionally among the minority parties.

PRI officials charged that Cardenas supporters brought in out-of-state residents to vote, intimidated PRI supporters trying to cast ballots and stole ballot boxes, in addition to the charge of illegal campaigning on election day.

In Baja, the PRI’s gubernatorial candidate, Margarita Ortega Villa, a 38-year-old sociologist who has served in a variety of electoral posts, faced a stiff challenge from Ernesto Ruffo Appel, a popular, 37-year-old former mayor of Ensenada and one-time fish-processing industry executive who is the candidate of the right-wing PAN. Polls showed that two other candidates representing left-of-center parties trailed badly.

If elected, Ortega would be the third woman governor in Mexico’s history and also the youngest-ever governor of Baja California, which became a state a quarter-century ago. She would also be the first-ever Baja native elected chief executive of the state, known for its huge numbers of migrants from other areas of Mexico.

Handpicked for Job

President Salinas, as is customary, handpicked Ortega as the Baja candidate, so her loss could be viewed as a humiliating defeat for his government. On the other hand, some experts say that a loss by Ortega--if recognized by the PRI--would bolster Salinas’ claim that he is committed to substantive change.

PAN officials mobilized hundreds of party workers and volunteers to help monitor the state’s 1,164 polling places. PAN sympathizers with walkie-talkies traveled from voting station to station, checking frequent reports of irregularities.

Despite the unprecedented vigilance, however, PAN charged that old-style PRI electoral chicanery was widespread. The opposition alleged that PRI sympathizers were voting numerous times, that PAN observers were being shut out from polling sites and that plans were in the works to “cook” the results once the ballots were collected by state electoral authorities, whose purported independence is questioned.

PAN monitors outside one PRI stronghold in Tijuana reported the departure of buses filled, they said, with PRI loyalists being taken to vote in various areas of the city.

“They (PRI officials) are doing what they have always done--trying to steal the election,” charged Hector Teran Teran, a representative of PAN’s statewide electoral committee.

At PRI headquarters a few blocks away, authorities dismissed such allegations. “We are respecting the electoral process,” said Luis Morones, a PRI spokesman who expressed confidence that the party’s candidate, Ortega, would vanquish the opposition.

Similar confidence was also voiced by PAN followers, who expressed the view that they could only lose due to alquimia-- “alchemy,” as electoral fraud here is known.

At stake in Michoacan were 24 seats in the state legislature--18 district representatives by direct vote and six representatives by proportional vote.

Turnout appeared to be low at several polling stations in Maravatio, where about 10% of the prospective voters either had not received their required credentials or did not find their names on voting lists.

In each case, the Cardenistas argued with poll workers and charged that the government was systematically trying to prevent the opposition from voting.

In the nearby town of Tungareo, poll secretary Nicolas Martinez said: “We (the PRI) lost here last year by a small margin. We are trying to conduct this election transparently, honestly and correctly.”

But Cardenas supporters, standing with arms crossed in the town’s central plaza, claimed that they saw at least a dozen PRI supporters vote in more than one place and that minors were voting. They pointed to a group of boys nearby.

Jorge Martinez and Rigoberto Villanueva, each wearing a PRI T-shirt, said they were 18 and voted for the ruling party. However, neither could show a voter credential or recall his birthday.

“April 23, 1963,” guessed Martinez. That would make him 26.

But the PRI also had legitimate support in the farming town, which is home to the PRI candidate for its district.

“We are PRIistas to the core,” said Belen Lopez, 20. “The PRI has given us roads, schools, markets, Conasupo (state stores), electricity. And if our candidate wins, he is going to pave our road and put in drainage.”

News agencies reported that in the northern state of Chihuahua, where PAN is the strongest opposition party, voters elected mayors and 28 state legislators. The ruling PRI was expected to win elections in most of the 57 municipalities.

Zacatecas, a PRI stronghold in central Mexico, registered a low turnout for the election of 15 state representatives.

Fernando Loyo, head of the electoral commission in the Yucatan Peninsula state of Campeche, said voting for 28 state legislators went smoothly, although turnout was low.

McDonnell reported from Baja and Miller from Michoacan.