In Blow to PRI, Yucatan Election Panel Is Seated

A tense constitutional standoff between the Mexican government and Yucatan state ended Monday when a federally appointed election council was installed peacefully under orders from the Supreme Court, signaling a victory for the rule of law in Mexico.

The resolution of the dispute was a blow to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and incumbent Gov. Victor Cervera Pacheco, who had defied a previous federal order to recognize the council and had vowed to protect Yucatan’s “sovereignty” from federal intervention.

The council will oversee the state’s May 27 gubernatorial election, in which the candidate of the long-entrenched PRI is facing serious opposition from Patricio Patron, a federal senator who is backed by a coalition of parties, including the National Action Party, or PAN. The PRI has held the Yucatan governorship since 1929.

While insisting that the Yucatan legislature had acted within its rights in refusing to recognize the new election council, PRI President Dulce Maria Sauri said Sunday that the party will abide by the decision. The seven-member supervisory council took office peacefully Monday afternoon.

“Let there be no confusion: The PRI respects the Supreme Court’s resolution,” Sauri said. Manuel Bartlett, a PRI hard-liner, agreed but warned that the “unfair and suspicious” court decision indicates that the PAN may try to impose what the PRI was long accused of: “a hegemony supported by all the judicial instruments.” The PAN is the party of new President Vicente Fox.

Most observers said the judicial resolution represents an encouraging departure from Mexico’s past, when the all-powerful president typically subverted the legal process by stepping in to arbitrate such conflicts.

“This sets a wonderful precedent that Mexicans are learning to use the structures and processes they’ve created,” said Roderic Ai Camp, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.

The standoff began after a federal election tribunal ruled that Yucatan’s PRI-controlled legislature had illegally reappointed the old election council in August. The tribunal questioned the council’s impartiality and ordered that a new one be selected.

After a months-long impasse and hostile posturing by the governor, the election tribunal appointed an alternative council and ordered that it take office. But in January, hundreds of PRI followers prevented council members from occupying their offices, provoking a skirmish in the state capital, Merida.

Pressure mounted on Fox to intervene with security forces, but he chose to let the case work its way through the courts. Monday’s outcome vindicated his course of action and raised hopes for a new maturity in Mexican politics, analysts said.

At the same time, the PRI’s surrender to the court order is a “mortal blow” to the party’s chances of hanging on to the governorship, said Rodrigo Menendez, editor of La Revista, a Merida-based magazine. “They’ve divided the society so much on this issue,” he said, “that this creates an advantage for their opposition.”

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Times staff writer James F. Smith in Mexico City contributed to this report.