Mexico’s Ruling Party Shuffles Leadership : Politics: Maria de los Angeles Moreno, the PRI’s first woman president, is replaced by labor secretary.

Its power waning and image fading, Mexico’s long-governing Institutional Revolutionary Party replaced its national president Saturday, ending an eight-month term that included the party’s worst election defeats in 66 years of continuous rule.

Maria de los Angeles Moreno, the first woman to lead the PRI during its six decades in power, announced she was stepping aside at an emotional party convention in Mexico City. Delegates immediately elected Mexico’s labor secretary, Santiago Onate, as her replacement, and later voted to replace the party’s secretary general as well.

“The party needs a change of attitudes . . . a new stage of electoral competition . . . a new leadership that has not been subjected to the systematic wearing down that has characterized my leadership,” Moreno declared in her resignation speech, her voice cracking.

The announcement came after an hour of speeches by party colleagues who praised her performance since taking over the party leadership Dec. 3. But her departure was seen as a major victory for party reformers and internal dissidents, who asserted that she lacked leadership, force and vision.

In recent weeks, even conservative party stalwarts voiced dissatisfaction with her, particularly after the PRI’s latest defeat in state elections in Baja California on Aug. 6. The party also suffered defeats by the opposition National Action Party this year in the states of Jalisco and Guanajuato.

Party leaders took pains Saturday to separate Moreno from the recent setbacks. Most blamed them on Mexico’s continuing economic crisis--soaring inflation and unemployment that voters have blamed on the party as a whole. President Ernesto Zedillo’s vow to separate the PRI from the government for the first time since 1929--barring it from using state funds and power during local elections--also contributed to this year’s defeats.

But party leaders privately conceded that Saturday’s move was aimed at strengthening the party’s leadership at a time when its dignity and future are at stake.

Underscoring the increasing vulnerability of the party and its leaders--and Mexico’s general state of lawlessness--the PRI’s hard-line governor of the southern state of Tabasco reported that he was kidnaped, beaten and threatened with death while being held for seven hours by armed men as he made his way Friday to the party convention.

A shaken Gov. Roberto Madrazo Pintado later told reporters that he doubted the attack just south of Mexico City was politically motivated. But speculation in the capital and in Tabasco about who ordered the attack focused on everyone from the political opposition to factions within the PRI. The state’s populist opposition leader, Manuel Lopez Obrador, even linked the attack to Saturday’s change of party presidents.

“The alleged kidnaping must be related to the internal battle in the PRI to replace its national leadership,” he said.

Santiago Onate is a veteran politician and party leader who won wage concessions from labor union leaders after the economic crisis erupted Dec. 19. He was expected to resign his Cabinet post.

Onate will face challenges in the months ahead, beginning with crucial state elections in Michoacan in early November. His predecessor outlined many of those obstacles in her resignation speech. Among the reasons Moreno cited for her party’s recent failures: the financial crisis, two unsolved murders of top party leaders last year, “false accusations against party leaders” and “the lack of credibility in the PRI’s ability to convince the electorate.”