Baja California Elections Expected to Be Fair : Mexico: National Action Party, once the opposition in the state, will preside over voting for the first time. Observers praise community involvement.

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

Today, Baja is making history again by running what most observers expect to be a clean election--one that is the first to be controlled by a state opposition government.

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 advances in an emerging political culture.

Since Ruffo and his conservative National Action Party (PAN) won the governorship in 1989, other states have gone to the opposition. But the electoral process 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,” said Mexican academic and election specialist Tonatiuh Guillen Lopez. “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 cast ballots for 19 state congressional seats and 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, the atmosphere of debate and excitement that has swept the state is more significant.

Candidates have gone door to door to garner votes, and voters have obtained new computerized voter IDs--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, bogus or dead voters such as Pablo Picasso and Juan Sebastian Bach.

Armed with the new computerized list, the registry has photographed more than 822,000 voters who have sought the credentials since January.

“That’s one of the most important elements of the election,” said Ruffo spokesman Gabriel Rosas Guzman. “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, a lawyer with the commission said.

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

“The transition in Baja California is modifying everybody’s political profile,” Guillen Lopez said. “The PRI has changed its profile more than anybody,” and become more plural and tolerant.

While polls have indicated 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 races. Four of the 19 seats are reserved for minor parties. Of the remaining 15, the PRI holds six and the PAN holds nine. But until now the four minor parties have usually voted with the PRI, giving it the majority.

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

Differences persist between the state and federal election registries. The federal census, for instance, claims an additional 100,000 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. “We feel we are in a turbine and moving toward something, but we’re not sure exactly where.”

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

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