Voting Is Peaceful in Mexican Elections

Voters went peacefully to the polls on Sunday in two hotly contested Mexican gubernatorial elections that are a test of the opposition’s political strength and of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s commitment to democratic change.

Suspicions about the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party’s intentions to respect the voting results, whatever they might be, cast a shadow over the elections in both states, Michoacan and Chihuahua.

The PRI, as the ruling party is called, is being challenged by the left-of-center Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) in the central farming state of Michoacan and by the conservative National Action Party (PAN) in the northern border state of Chihuahua. Early results are expected today, and the official vote count is due in a week.

Tensions ran highest here in Michoacan, home state of populist leader Cuauhtemoc Cardenas. An opposition victory in Michoacan is essential to the future of Cardenas’ PRD. He has protested to the Organization of American States over what he charged was pre-election tampering with voter rolls.

On Sunday, opposition leaders accused the ruling party of illegally distributing voter credentials and of committing other kinds of fraud in Michoacan, where about 800 national and foreign observers were on hand to monitor the election process. Activists of both parties scuffled in the streets but apparently did not interfere with voting.

Morelia Mayor Samuel Maldonado, a member of Cardenas’ party, accused federal police of abetting ruling party efforts to steal the election. He joined an angry crowd of Cardenas supporters that had surrounded a man accused of handing out voter cards. The unidentified man escaped just before federal police arrived with rifles and machine guns. No one apparently was injured in the melee.

PRI officials denied charges of election tampering and claimed that a rowdy opposition was provoking violence in the streets. PRI officials said no major disruptions of voting had taken place.

The Democratic Revolutionary Party’s candidate for governor is Cristobal Arias, a federal deputy running against PRI businessman and fellow deputy Eduardo Villasenor. Arias’ wife reportedly came to blows with an election official at her polling place, but the balloting continued.

Tensions also simmered beneath the surface in Chihuahua, where National Action candidate Francisco Barrio challenged PRI candidate Jesus Macias.

Late Sunday, both major parties claimed they were headed for victory.

Barrio ran for governor in 1986 and asserts that the PRI stole the election from him then.

After that election, Barrio supporters blockaded the international bridge between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, causing tie-ups that crippled production for the state’s border assembly industry. PAN activists say they are ready to do the same thing again if they are cheated, something that could be embarrassing for Salinas when he watches the All-Star baseball game in San Diego, as he is scheduled to do with President Bush on Tuesday.

The PRI has ceded to the opposition only two governorships in the six decades that it has dominated Mexican politics. In 1989, PAN’s Ernesto Ruffo Appel won the state house in Baja California. Last year, the PRI claimed it had won the governor’s race in the central state of Guanajuato, but after widespread protests of fraud, Salinas ordered that PAN’s Carlos Medina Placencia be installed as governor.

“If Macias wins (in Chihuahua), it means they’re up to their old tricks,” a Barrio supporter said as he left a Chihuahua City polling place.

In a nearby neighborhood named for famed revolutionary hero Francisco (Pancho) Villa, a native of the state, 25-year-old Celia Cardillo said, “Macias came out to our neighborhood to meet us, but Barrio never showed his face.”

National Action’s image as a party of the bourgeoisie is one of Barrio’s major drawbacks, another voter said.

“In general, the elections have been calm,” said Victor Quintana, spokesman for the Ola Democratica--Democratic Wave--a coalition of civic organizations that sent 400 observers to keep an eye on polling places throughout Chihuahua.

“There were no gross violations, but there have been irregularities,” he said. Those included voters who were allowed to vote with expired credentials, with no credentials or when their names did not appear on voter registration lists.

Salinas has yet to concede a major election to Cardenas’ left-of-center PRD. Cardenas left the PRI to mount an unsuccessful challenge against Salinas in the 1988 presidential election.

Miller reported from Morelia, and Darling reported from Chihuahua City.