Ruffo Pledges Harmony With Mexico City : Baja: First opposition governor takes oath of office as President Salinas of the PRI watches approvingly.

Ernesto Ruffo Appel, pledging to work with the national government, took the oath of office Wednesday as governor of the state of Baja California, becoming the first opposition governor in Mexico’s history.

Before thousands of applauding partisans and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Ruffo delivered a conciliatory speech emphasizing his determination to work with the national leadership in Mexico City, which is dominated by the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party.

“We know that we are initiating here a new era of the history of Mexico,” Ruffo told the crowd gathered at the state auditorium here. “We’re not ignoring the complexities or the difficulties at this moment of transition, one in which the past has yet to die and the future is only beginning to be born. To cross this difficult era is the challenge of our generation.”

During his inauguration speech, Ruffo emphasized traditional good-government themes: He pledged to rid the state of corruption, vowed to clean up the notoriously corrupt state police apparatus and vowed to improve education and goverment services, from delivery of water to maintenance of roads. He called for broad citizen participation in his plan to rejuvenate the Baja California government.

Salinas’ presence at the inauguration highlighted the conciliatory tone of the day. The two men traveled to Mexicali together on the presidential plane from Mexico City, where Salinas earlier in the day had made his first state-of-the-union address.

In an address at a university here, Salinas pledged to support Ruffo’s program. Salinas is the leader of the ruling party, which is known as the PRI.

Ruffo, a member of the opposition National Action Party, known by its Spanish acronym as PAN, was sworn in for a six-year term that began Wednesday. Every previous state governor in modern Mexico has been a member of the PRI.

Ruffo, a 37-year-old seafood industry executive and former mayor of Ensenada, was elected last July in a hotly contested race.

Apart from winning the gubernatorial race, the opposition PAN also won a plurality in the state legislature and the mayoral seats in Tijuana, the state’s most populous city, and Ensenada. “With the extraordinary impulse of citizen participation, we will strengthen the society and the residents of Baja California,” Ruffo said.

Political observers throughout the nation will be watching Ruffo’s tenure as governor of Baja California, which is now considered Mexico’s foremost political laboratory.

The state is also serving as a key test of President Salinas’ stated commitment to democratic reform in Mexico.

Salinas was warmly greeted here by the thousands of Ruffo supporters gathered at the auditorium. Ruffo himself went out of his way to salute the president for his democratic vision.

Throughout Mexico, it is widely assumed that Salinas thwarted efforts to deprive Ruffo of his electoral victory through fraud. In the past, PRI officials have often been accused of resorting to fraud to score tainted “victories” in elections that the party actually lost.

“Mr. President, I believe you govern for all Mexicans, as I will govern for all Baja Californians,” Ruffo said. “I am convinced that laws and authority should unite, never divide.”