POLITICS : Mexico Candidate Seeks Post He Says Was Stolen From Him

Francisco Barrio is out to claim what, by many accounts, was stolen from him six years ago. The popular 41-year-old businessman is the opposition National Action Party’s candidate for governor of this northern desert state--a job he lost to the ruling party in a fraud-tainted election in 1986.

That controversial vote prompted the firebrand Barrio to lead his supporters in street marches and a blockade of international bridges to the United States. Party chiefs went on a prolonged hunger strike and normally quiet Catholic church officials cried foul about the vote.

Today, a less combative Barrio is running against Jesus Macias, the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party’s candidate, in the July 12 election that is a measure of how Mexican politics have changed in the last six years--and also how they have not.

“We are going to the election prepared to win,” Barrio told reporters recently. But, he added, “we have to adjust to the times. Now it is possible to talk with the government. Our ideal is no longer a country of dogs and cats.”

When Barrio ran for the statehouse in 1986, he hoped to become the country’s first opposition governor in more than half a century of rule by the PRI, as the official party is called. The government viewed him and National Action as a threat to its hegemony.

Now National Action has the statehouses in Baja California and Guanajuato, and President Carlos Salinas de Gortari views the conservative party as an ally in his neo-liberal program to restructure Mexico’s economy.

National Action, in turn, is working closely with the government; during a meeting last April, Barrio assured Salinas that he would be a cooperative opposition governor.

Salinas also is more concerned than his predecessors about Mexico’s image abroad. He does not want to risk protests and potential violence in a border state--home to much of the maquiladora , or foreign assembly plant industry--during the final hours of free-trade negotiations with the United States and Canada.

As is typical at election time, the government has spent wildly on public works in Chihuahua. National Action accuses outgoing Gov. Fernando Baeza of personally running the PRI’s gubernatorial campaign, and with state funds. PRI radio and television advertising is copious. Salinas toured Chihuahua last week handing out thousands of land titles to would-be voters and promising funds for new state projects.

But Salinas also issued a public warning to his party that he would not tolerate the blatant fraud of stuffed and burned ballot boxes that reporters and voters witnessed in 1986. The election, Salinas said, “will not prove to be an element of discord but rather an opportunity for free public expression.”

Both Barrio and Macias are predicting victory.

Macias, 43, is the mayor of Ciudad Juarez. He makes the case that the PRI has an exceptionally well-organized campaign. Public anger over the economic crisis and corruption that led people to vote for Barrio in 1986 has dissipated; the economy has improved and Salinas’ popularity is a draw for his party.

The Barrio camp argues that Barrio can win, despite what it asserts is official tampering with the voter rolls and credentials.

Barrio proved he is “a pillar of honesty” when he served as mayor of Juarez before Macias, according to National Action’s state leader, Jorge Manzanera. And independent-minded Chihuahuans haven’t forgiven the apparent fraud of 1986.

But in a tragic twist, Barrio’s campaign was thrown into disarray last weekend when the candidate’s daughter, Judith, was killed in an automobile accident and three other daughters were hospitalized with injuries.

The political impact of the accident was unclear. But political observers said the devastated Barrio might not have the political fight in him needed to challenge the ruling party if there is another attempt to steal the vote.