Mexico’s PRI Loses a Governorship

In a fresh sign of disarray, Mexico’s long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, was trounced in a state once a bastion of its support, according to election results announced Monday.

The party lost the governor’s race Sunday in Baja California Sur to a left-wing coalition. In another contest, the PRI squeaked to victory in the politically tense state of Guerrero, and the leftist opposition protested the vote.

The elections were the first of seven gubernatorial races this year that are being scrutinized for clues to the fate of the world’s longest-ruling party.

The main question is whether the PRI, long run with ironfisted control, can survive while Mexico’s one-party rule gives way to democracy. In Sunday’s race in Baja California, the party splintered, and many members bolted to the opposition. The same thing occurred in two other races for governor last year, raising questions about whether the PRI could implode in the presidential race in 2000.

“The ruptures in the PRI are much more damaging [to the party] than the opposition is,” noted Jose Antonio Crespo, author of a book about the PRI.

The Baja California race was an example. The state, known for the resort area of Los Cabos, had no significant opposition presence until recently. But when the PRI feuded over its choice of candidate for governor, the loser, Leonel Cota, quit. He became standard-bearer for Mexico’s main left-wing force, the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.

With two-thirds of the ballots counted Monday, the PRD and its coalition partner, the small Workers Party, had 55% of the vote to the PRI’s 36%.

With the PRD victory, nine of Mexico’s 31 states, as well as the sprawling Mexico City federal district, are now in the hands of opposition parties.

The PRI is still a formidable force. Despite being tarnished by an economic crisis and corruption scandals, it won seven of the 10 gubernatorial races last year. According to results announced Monday, it has held on to Guerrero, considered more important than thinly populated Baja California Sur.

With 99% of voting stations reporting, the PRI had 49% in Guerrero, a southern state with a striking mix of hardscrabble peasant farms and tourist resorts like Acapulco. The PRD had 47%. In 1993, the ruling party outpolled the PRD by more than 2 to 1.

The PRD rejected the Guerrero results Monday, setting the stage for possible turmoil in a state already facing two small guerrilla insurgencies.

Sunday’s vote indicated that the PRI has not solved its main problem: finding a way to choose candidates in the new democratic era.

In a major reform, the party has held primaries in most races for governor over the past year. The primaries replaced an authoritarian system in which the powerful Mexican president handpicked candidates and his own successor.

The PRI initially regarded the primaries as a model for choosing its candidate for the 2000 presidential race. But some primaries, like the one in Baja California Sur, have turned into brawls, with candidates complaining of being manipulated by local governors.

“This could cause enormous difficulties. Within the PRI, you don’t have a way of choosing a candidate that makes everybody happy, [in which] losers accept their defeat,” said Joy Langston of the Center for Economic Investigation and Teaching, a Mexico City think tank.