PRI Candidates Spar as Primary Campaign Ends

Four candidates competing in the first-ever presidential primary of Mexico’s ruling party wrapped up their campaigns Wednesday amid raucous rallies and protests of dirty tricks.

The latest polls showed Francisco Labastida, a close ally of President Ernesto Zedillo, in the lead. But the barbs flying between Labastida and his chief opponent, Roberto Madrazo, raised questions about whether the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, will suffer a devastating split after Sunday’s election.

During a PRI ceremony formally ending the campaign, Madrazo and Manuel Bartlett, another candidate, charged Wednesday night that the primary race had been unfair. They warned that if Sunday’s election is rigged, the party will suffer.

“We won’t accept people bused [by candidates] to the polls, expenses that can’t be explained, improbable results,” Bartlett said, to whoops of support from the crowd at PRI headquarters. “Only with a free vote and a transparent election can we rebuild our unity.”

The primary marks a major departure from the practice in which Mexican presidents handpicked the PRI nominee. The party has won every presidential race since 1929.

If the open primary is a novelty, however, the final-day rallies Wednesday were pure PRI tradition--music-drenched celebrations packed with cheering supporters in free T-shirts and caps, many bused in by pro-PRI organizations and unions.

“They brought us here. We were required to come ‘voluntarily,’ ” said Leticia Urbano, 21, who came to the Labastida rally with her 30 co-workers from a textile factory in Atizapan, on the outskirts of Mexico City.

Labastida held his closing rally at the imposing, domed Monument to the Revolution in the capital.

“I want to be president because I want to end the poverty and ignorance, the violence and injustice, the corruption and the impunity that tear at our country,” said Labastida, the former head of the powerful Interior Ministry.

Across town, Madrazo spoke to a throng at the Monument to the Heroic Children, which honors military cadets who are said to have jumped to their deaths wrapped in the Mexican flag during a U.S. invasion in 1847.

Madrazo, the governor of southern Tabasco state, charged that Labastida is an old-style candidate supported by the party machine.

“This is what this election is about: to change or stay the same, to vote for the same people as always, or to vote for change,” Madrazo said.

Two polls published Wednesday showed Labastida ahead of Madrazo after being virtually tied earlier in the race. The Mexico City newspaper Reforma found that 44% of likely voters backed Labastida, compared with 33% for Madrazo, with 11% undecided and the rest supporting two minor candidates, Bartlett and Humberto Roque Villanueva.

The daily Universal gave Labastida a bigger margin--52.7% to Madrazo’s 34.6%--in a survey of the general population.

Despite Labastida’s lead, however, pollsters have warned that it’s impossible to predict the winner of Sunday’s race. The polls have measured overall voter sentiment, but the deciding factor in the primary will be who wins a majority of the country’s 300 congressional voting districts. And because the election is unprecedented, no one is exactly sure who will turn out to vote.

Even as the PRI emphasized party unity Wednesday, Madrazo and Labastida continued to bash each other.

Madrazo’s campaign announced a toll-free number that citizens could call to report alleged episodes of fraud. Madrazo is warning that the PRI machinery could resort to vote-buying to ensure a Labastida victory.

Such charges and countercharges have raised doubts about whether the PRI will be able to mend rifts and win July’s presidential election, which may be the country’s most competitive ever.