PRI Claims Victory in Mexico Elections

The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party on Monday claimed an “undeniable” victory in the vast majority of the 121 municipal elections in the State of Mexico, while both major opposition parties stepped up their charges of fraud.

Leftist leader Cuauhtemoc Cardenas in a press conference accused the government of stealing the election and called for it to be annulled.

Official results from Sunday’s vote for mayors and a state legislature are not due until Wednesday. But the ruling party, known as the PRI, released unofficial figures conceding in only three of the municipalities. Results were unavailable for a few towns.

“In at least 80% of the races, the triumph for our party is undeniable,” national PRI representative Juan Maldonado Pereda told reporters in the state capital of Toluca.

One of the victories claimed by PRI officials came in Naucalpan, the nation’s wealthiest municipality. Their partial figures show the PRI with a 2-to-1 lead over the opposition.

But leaders of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, say their numbers indicate the vote is too close to call based on partial results, and an independent pollster said his exit poll showed that the PRI and PAN were virtually tied in Naucalpan.

“Only the full vote count can tell us who actually won,” said pollster Miguel Basanez, a former state attorney general. He said election officials evicted his surveyors from polling places in other areas of the state.

Astolso Vicencio, a PAN federal deputy from Mexico, accused the PRI of election-day fraud.

“There were a large number of problems in Naucalpan because the PRI wanted to win at any cost,” he said.

Both Vicencio and Cardenas charged that the government stole ballot boxes, expelled their parties’ observers from polling places, allowed people to vote without credentials and forced some to vote for the PRI.

“In general, the worst vice was the carousel voting--taking people from poll to poll with false credentials to vote several times,” Vicencio said.

Mexico, the country’s most populated and industrialized state, surrounds Mexico City. The Mexico election is being viewed as a test of the government’s commitment to fair elections and as a preview to the 1991 national vote for the federal Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

Mexico was one of five states won by Cardenas’ Democratic Revolutionary Party in the 1988 presidential vote. A high abstention rate in Sunday’s election appears to have hurt the opposition and helped the PRI, which has an experienced party machine and more resources.

The PRI results recognize victories for National Action in the towns of Cuautitlan and San Martin de las Piramides.

The official party also recognized a victory for Cardenas’ party in Cocotitlan.