Baja Elections to Serve as Test of Reforms to Halt the Fraud : Government: The first Mexican election controlled by an opposition party will feature voter ID cards with photos.

Three years ago, Baja California Gov. Ernesto Ruffo Appel became the first opposition leader to win control of a Mexican state since the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party was founded in 1929.

Baja is making history again today, by running what observers expect to be a clean election--the first ever to be controlled by an opposition party.

The days before Mexican elections are usually filled with street whispers of anticipated fraud and deceit, but today’s election has citizens, academics and even politicians pointing to new advances in an emerging political culture.

Since Ruffo and his conservative National Action Party, or PAN, won the governorship in 1989, other states have gone to the opposition. But the electoral process always remained under the tight control of the federal government’s PRI.

Those victories--Ruffo’s included--have been shadowed by the specter of “selective democracy,” a term that has come to connote the PRI’s behind-the-scenes negotiations to determine when and where to concede defeat.

“It’s a big step toward the political autonomy of the state. Before, everything was under federal control,” Mexican academic and election specialist Tonatiuh Guillen Lopez said. “Compare it to 1988 or 1989, when fraud was the daily theme on the street. We have already come a long way from visions of fraud. It’s a window of political possibility.”

Voters go to the polls today to fill 19 state congressional seats and choose the mayors of Tijuana, Ensenada, Tecate and Mexicali.

Although the outcome of congressional elections could set the tone for Ruffo’s remaining three years in office, more significant than the results is the atmosphere of debate and excitement that has swept the state, sending candidates door to door to garner votes, and voters to special mobile homes to collect new computerized voter IDs--complete with photos--designed to eliminate fraud.

“The state photo credential will ensure that the election is the most sophisticated in the history of Mexico,” Guillen Lopez said.

After negotiating with the federal government, the state formed its own electoral registry, purging the old one--which was stacked with names of repeat or dead voters--including the illustrious Pablo Picasso and Juan Sebastian Bach.

Armed with the new computerized list, the registry put out the word and photographed more than 822,000 voters who came for their credentials since January.

“That’s one of the most important elements of the election,” said Ruffo spokesman Gabriel Rosas Guzman. “With this credential, there will be a whole system in the polls. With the list from the state, you can see the same signature, the same photo. That is where we have arrived. . . . It annuls any possibility of fraud and gives me confidence in the electoral process. We are entering a new political culture here, and the people have confidence.”

With that new political culture has come a growing understanding of voter accountability among politicians.

“What we have seen is that all the parties are very much seeking out the people. There has been a lot of debate and a lot of participation,” Rosas Guzman said. “There isn’t just one candidate yelling the loudest to vote for him. It’s a risk for the politicians, but it’s a great gain for Baja California.”

The state Human Rights Commission has trained several hundred citizens to monitor the elections, another indication of eager civic involvement, said Antonio Garcia, a lawyer with the commission.

“Men, women and young people have all come forward. Their participation has a great civic value. It’s encouraging to see the volunteers express themselves,” Garcia said. Observers from the non-governmental Mexican Academy of Human Rights have also come to monitor the elections. Together, the agencies will put out a report documenting their findings.

But Garcia said the new credentials make the type of fraud that used to commonly plague Mexican elections impossible. Card-holders will only vote once, and only card-holders will vote.

“It won’t be easy to falsify this kind of documentation. There’s the card, the signature and the photo,” he said.

The observers--who were all screened to make sure they aren’t stumping for a particular political party--will check to make sure that the polls open on time, that indelible ink is used, that the vote is confidential, that all candidates are on the ballot and that other procedural details are followed, he said.

Observers point out that, in Baja’s evolving political climate, it’s not only Ruffo’s party that is transforming its image.

Even the PRI--the party which won all races consistently for 60 years--is changing in Baja.

“The transition in Baja California is modifying everybody’s political profile,” said Guillen Lopez. “The PRI has changed its profile more than anybody,” he said, becoming more plural and tolerant. “The PAN, too, is learning how to deal with its members who are in power. Even the smaller parties have had to change their tones, adopting a more central orientation,” he said.

Although polls have indicated that the PAN will retain control of Tijuana and Ensenada, and the PRI will keep its hold on Tecate and Mexicali, Guillen Lopez said the most delicate aspect of today’s election is the congressional race. Four of the 19 seats are reserved for minor parties. Of the remaining 15, the PRI holds six and the PAN holds nine. But, up until now, the four minor parties have tended to vote with the PRI, giving it the majority.

Past elections have shown the PRI slowly gaining ground in the state congress. Another seat in its favor today could make Ruffo’s next three years “tense,” Guillen Lopez said.

Regardless of the outcome of the election, differences between the state and federal election registries persist. The federal census, for instance, claims more than 100,000 additional eligible voters since 1991. The state’s number is closer to 500, Guillen Lopez said.

“There are important differences that are going to continue to create problems,” he said.

PRI officials in Baja complained that eligible voters did not receive their credentials in time for today’s election.

The cards were issued selectively by the state, to the PRI’s disadvantage, said Hugo Abel Castro Bojorquez, state director of the PRI. Mobile homes distributing the cards were strategically placed in PAN-dominated neighborhoods, he said, and according to his figures more than 170,000 eligible voters--most of them PRI sympathizers--did not receive cards at all.

“It’s important not to confuse a technological advance with a democratic one,” he said of the voting cards.

He said the 822,000 that got to voters would never have been issued if it hadn’t been “for the constant vigilance of the PRI and other parties.”

Nevertheless, Castro Bojorquez said PRI candidates are “running to win” and looking forward to clean, honest and legal elections.

While the new voting cards are a positive innovation, Castro Bojorquez said Baja California should not get all the credit: the federal government as well as other states had also come up with the idea, he said. It was just easier to implement in Baja.

Castro Bojorquez presented his party’s complaints to representatives of the non-governmental Mexican Human Rights Academy, who are monitoring the elections along with the state Human Rights Commission.

While academy members have been monitoring elections since 1991, this is the first time the group was invited to do so by both a state government and state-run human rights commission. Academy members have been welcomed by all political parties and have had open access to all stages of the electoral process, said academy president Sergio Aguayo, who observed the 1990 Haitian elections as part of an international team.

It also marks the first time that a state human rights commission has identified the right to a fair and free election as a human right, academy member Oscar Gonzalez said.

“For the first time, we will be able to be real observers,” Aguayo said. “That means the possibility of observing whatever we want, without resistance. We are in another world in terms of access.”

The group will monitor the ballot counting as well as a host of procedural details and present its findings Tuesday in conjunction with the state human rights commission. The changes sweeping the state have generated a palpable excitement.

“We feel we are in a turbine and moving toward something, but we’re not sure exactly where,” Guillen Lopez said.

That sensation could catch on elsewhere: Baja California’s novel election practices may serve as a model to other states and even the federal government, which has already vowed to issue photo credentials for the next election, Rosas Guzman said.