Ruling Party Picks Its Candidate for First Mexico City Mayoral Race

There were no funny hats, no balloons. But this nation’s longtime ruling party got its first taste of a big-time political convention on Wednesday as it threw open its selection process for the powerful mayoralty of Mexico City in what it called a new spirit of democracy.

The party, which traditionally selected its candidates in a secret method known as the dedazo--or finger-pointing by senior officials--had held primaries or conventions in a few smaller races in the past. But for the first time Wednesday, the authoritarian Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, held an internal vote in an important contest--with favorite Alfredo del Mazo emerging the party’s winner.

The Mexico City mayor, often described as the country’s No. 2 politician, has never been elected by the public before.

“The winds of democracy are blowing strongly through the PRI today,” proclaimed Esteban Moctezuma, a top political strategist for the party that has ruled Mexico for seven decades.

Del Mazo, winner of the three-way race Wednesday, had previously emerged as the favorite in public-opinion polls and was favored by PRI unions and party bosses. He was chosen overwhelmingly as the party’s mayoral candidate by members of the party’s local political council, which represents different factions in the PRI.

As news photographers snapped furiously, the 199 delegates marched one by one to pick up ballots, mark them and deposit them in a glass box at party headquarters. The votes were later opened before hundreds of PRI supporters and journalists.

In a country long accustomed to vote fraud, it was a striking sight.

Officials and analysts said the PRI resorted to a convention in part to burnish its image as it begins a tough uphill fight. Until this year, the mayor of the capital was appointed by the president and was always a member of the ruling party. But, in a move to reduce some of the near-absolute power of his post, President Ernesto Zedillo announced shortly after taking office in 1994 that voters would choose the mayor.

Polls have shown the PRI lagging in third place in the run-up to the July 6 mayoral vote, behind the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, and the left-wing Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD. The ruling party’s image has been battered by soaring crime and a national economic crisis.

Losing Mexico City--the country’s political, economic and cultural center--would be an enormous blow to the PRI. Almost 10% of the country’s population live within the capital’s perimeter, and millions more live nearby. A victorious opposition candidate would likely use the mayor’s job as a high-profile platform to seek the presidency in 2000.

The lower house of Congress is also up for grabs in the July elections. However, the opposition appears less likely to win there than in the mayor’s race.

Wednesday’s convention was the subject of keen interest in Mexico, the culmination of a campaign in which candidates took their programs to public rallies and the airwaves. Still, it wasn’t clear whether the convention idea would catch on in the party.

In a major break with the past, Zedillo has vowed to abandon the custom in which an outgoing leader chooses the next PRI presidential candidate. But party leaders have continued to anoint candidates in important local races.

Federico Estevez, a prominent political scientist here, said the convention would help the PRI “minimize further damage in terms of [appearing to use] the old political way of doing things.”

“But maybe the convention idea won’t gather much steam,” he added, “because it looks to me [as if] the PRI is going to end up in third place, no matter who is selected” as the candidate. “That won’t help the idea of reform within the PRI.”

He added that the PRI didn’t only organize the convention to appear democratic; party leaders were also split over their mayoral candidate.

Del Mazo, 53, who received 151 votes, is a former governor of the state of Mexico and now heads the national public housing authority, Infonavit. In the July election, he is expected to face: Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, a popular former left-wing presidential candidate; and Carlos Castillo Peraza, a former leader of PAN. Del Mazo defeated two other contenders Wednesday for the candidacy: Jose Antonio Gonzalez, chief prosecutor for Mexico City; and Manuel Jimenez Guzman, leader of the capital’s legislature.