Ruffo Rode Charisma to Historic Baja Victory

A seemingly easygoing, informal politician with a surprisingly soft voice, Ernesto Ruffo Appel hardly seems the type to make electoral history. But Ruffo now stands poised to be Mexico’s first modern-day opposition governor, having apparently handily defeated the ruling-party candidate in Sunday’s elections in Baja California.

If his victory is confirmed this Sunday, when the votes will be counted, it will mark the zenith of a heady three-year political career. Already, there is talk of a presidential candidacy.

In 1986, Ruffo was an executive of an Ensenada seafood-processing firm when he was hand-picked by business interests to represent the right-of-center, pro-business National Action Party, known as the PAN, in the city’s mayoral elections. He had never run for office before, but he says he had been a long-time sympathizer of the PAN, an opposition party for 50 years. He reportedly stood vigil for the PAN at voting booths during the 1980 elections.

Ruffo’s opponent in the mayoral race was an unpopular, little-known and aloof candidate imposed by the leadership of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI. Ruffo, by contrast, was well-known and personable. He has lived most of his life in Ensenada, a port city of more than 200,000 residents about 70 miles south of Tijuana, and had held posts in a number of seafood-industry trade groups.

Triumph of Personalities

He won the mayoral race by a wide margin. Most observers said it was a triumph of personalities rather than politics. Ruffo’s political rhetoric tends to focus more on the need for change in Mexico than on any specific political programs of the PAN.

Ruffo’s informal, open-shirt style--seemingly embodying the easy-going pace prevalent in Ensenada----appealed to voters long accustomed to the often-studied formalism of PRI leaders. He often wears jeans and seldom dons a tie. Working in his favor was his position as an underdog in an area eager for change--a theme often exploited by Ruffo.

Asked to explain Ruffo’s success, analysts inevitably refer to his pleasant personality and widespread voter discontent with the ruling party. “Everyone seems to like Ruffo, regardless of what his party stands for,” noted Jose Luis Perez Canchola, a social scientist allied with leftist parties here. “He seems to have a certain charisma.”

At rallies, Ruffo, a round-faced, curly-haired man with an ample midriff, seems comfortable dancing to music, kissing babies and women and embracing male colleagues. His speeches lack the punch of his presence, but no one appears to mind. He has a clear populist appeal.

Ruffo’s three-year term as mayor of Ensenada was a stormy one. He charged that the PRI-dominated state government withheld municipal funds, forcing him to cut back services and lay off hundreds of workers, mostly belonging to unions affiliated with the PRI. The workers held vigils outside of City Hall, calling the maverick mayor incompetent and unable to manage a budget.

For his part, Ruffo acknowledged that he lacked experience in government and that he may have made mistakes, but he charged that political manipulation was behind the city’s fiscal crisis. “Everyone understands that this problem, at its root, is political,” the then-embattled mayor declared.

Soon, after sanitation workers also had to be laid off, Ruffo took to the streets to personally help in a massive cleanup. It was yet another publicity coup for a mayor who always seemed receptive to journalists, from both Mexico and the United States. The state government and Ruffo finally reached an accord, and many workers were rehired, diffusing the crisis.

Successfully Battled System

Once again, Ruffo emerged as a successful battler of the system, a little guy who made good against the behemoth that is the PRI. His gubernatorial campaign slogan and anthem-- “Si, se puede “--is roughly translated as, “Yes, we can do it.”

“The Mexico we are living in now is a new Mexico,” Ruffo said in an interview several years ago. “The PRI is not accustomed to living with competition. So, of course, they resist change. . . . The PRI has to learn to live with the new reality. If they don’t, they are going to lose their position very rapidly.”

Ruffo, who turned 37 last month, was born in San Diego, as were many other Baja California residents whose parents could afford the superior medical care available north of the border. In nationalistic Mexico, his birthplace has frequently been used against him, as has his affiliation with a party often viewed as pro- Yanqui. At one point, a move was afoot in the state legislature to pass a law requiring that only Mexican-born citizens could become governors.

Ruffo has confronted the issue of his birth head-on. At age 18, he says he freely chose Mexican citizenship over the benefits of a U.S. passport. He notes that he served in the Mexican military, rising to the rank of sergeant in an infantry brigade. His campaign rallies often end with the singing of the national anthem. The candidate of the party with the blue-and-white banner sports a Mexican tricolor on his lapel.

Reared comfortably in a small-town atmosphere in Ensenada, Ruffo graduated in 1975 with a degree in business administration from the Technical Institute of Monterrey, in the northern state of Nuevo Leon. The school is a hotbed of young PAN activists and a favorite destination for the sons and daughters of wealthy Mexican industrialists, particularly from the north. After graduating, he returned to Ensenada and entered the business world, becoming chief of personnel in 1976 at Pesquera Zapata, a giant seafood-processing company jointly owned by Mexican and U.S. investors.

While a politician from the highly nationalistic PRI may have been embarrassed about working for a firm with U.S. ties, Ruffo was unapologetic. Also, in contrast to PRI office-holders, he is not hesitant to speak English, of which he has some command, to U.S. groups or interviewers. (Even PRI officials schooled extensively in the United States are unlikely to speak English publicly, lest they be perceived as somehow unpatriotic or unduly pro-American.)

During his term in Ensenada, Ruffo often insisted that he was not interested in becoming governor. But his growing popularity meant that his candidacy was a practical certainty by the time he announced his entry into the race some months ago. PRI strategists conceded that he would be a difficult candidate to defeat, despite the massive party apparatus.

His campaign program speaks of rooting out corruption, encouraging foreign and domestic investment, pumping government money into delivery of water, pavement and other services. All are themes also enunciated by the PRI. How exactly a Ruffo administration plans to finance all its expensive plans remains a mystery, but, right now, the voters don’t seem to be asking.

“With the people united,” he told a rally in Tijuana Tuesday evening, “we all know that, Yes, we can do it!”