Fox’s Party Suffers Defeat in Stronghold

President Vicente Fox’s National Action Party suffered a serious blow Sunday with its loss of the governor’s race in Chihuahua state, scene of the party’s early triumphs and a major source of voter support in his historic 2000 presidential victory.

With 60% of the vote counted, National Action Party, or PAN, candidate Javier Corral Jurado, a federal senator, was trailing 56% to 42% behind Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate Jose Reyes Baeza, a former mayor of Chihuahua city, the state capital. Exit polls indicated that the PRI candidate would maintain his commanding lead after all votes were counted in the next day or two.

The PAN also failed Sunday to win governors’ races in Zacatecas and Durango states. Amalia Garcia of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party claimed victory in Zacatecas, becoming the first woman to win a Mexican governorship since the end of single-party rule. With a third of the votes counted, she had 49%, far ahead of the 34% for her nearest competitor, Jose Bonilla of the PRI.

Ismael Hernandez of the PRI had a big lead in Durango. Although the PAN did not lose any governorships it held, the defeats continued a trend of setbacks in northern border states that voted heavily for Fox four years ago. It shows the reform party’s inability to convert Fox’s stunning triumph, which ended the PRI’s 71-year grip on power, into sustained growth in its electoral power.

Elsewhere in Chihuahua state, with 37% of the votes counted, the PAN also was losing to the PRI in the race for mayor in Ciudad Juarez, 44% to 55%, a seat the PAN has held for 12 years. In the city of Chihuahua, the mayor’s race was too close to call.

There was one possible bright note for the PAN: “Tomato King” Andres Bermudez was winning his mayoral race in the Zacatecas city of Jerez. The Winters, Calif.-based nursery farmer held a 9-point lead over his nearest competitor with 38% of the votes counted. Bermudez was one of several emigrants to the U.S. from Zacatecas who went back home to run for office.

“The PAN has suffered because they have not demonstrated they are better, or different. They have not delivered,” political analyst Sergio Aguayo said.

Governorships of other border states, Nuevo Leon and Sonora, were won by the PRI last year. Midterm congressional elections last year also were disheartening for the PAN, as it saw its seats in the lower house fall to 151 from 205. The PRI’s total seats rose to 222 from 208.

Analysts said the losses reflect the disenchantment of voters with Fox for failing to deliver on campaign promises of sweeping reforms and a better economy. The next presidential election is still two years off, but early electoral momentum seems to have shifted away from the PAN.

“The PAN is losing ground in its traditional strongholds,” said Reynaldo Ortega, a political scientist at Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City. “On a national level it seems the expectations for President Fox were very high and that they are not being fulfilled.”

The victory is an important one for PRI President Roberto Madrazo, who campaigned frequently for Baeza and who has aspirations for his party’s 2006 presidential nomination.

“This is part of the PRI strategy to recapture the north and Madrazo’s effort to gain legitimacy. He is trying to bolster his image as the party’s savior,” said Leo Zuckermann, a political scientist at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching in Mexico City.

The PAN had high hopes for Chihuahua because the state economy had languished and corruption flourished under incumbent PRI Gov. Patricio Martinez. Meanwhile, drug violence and the killing of young women in Ciudad Juarez, the state’s biggest city, continued to make international headlines.

The PAN has strong historic and symbolic links to Chihuahua. It won its first two major electoral victories in 1983 by taking the mayoralties of Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua. The PAN is widely believed to have been robbed of what would have been its first statewide victory, the Chihuahua governor’s race in 1986, through ballot-box stuffing by PRI election workers.

“Chihuahua is where the political changes started that brought Fox to power,” said Lorenzo Meyer, a historian at Colegio de Mexico. But Baeza mounted an effective campaign by promising to address social issues such as education and the problems of single women and the elderly. He is also perceived as having been an effective mayor of Chihuahua city, promoting numerous public works projects, including a downtown redevelopment.

“We know Baeza’s track record as a public servant, but I know nothing about how Corral has done his job,” said Isabel Zepeda, a schoolteacher, one of a dozen Chihuahuans interviewed at the downtown cathedral. None said they had voted for Corral, who has spent most of his political career in Mexico City.

Baeza’s candidacy also demonstrates that in nominating politicians with strong local profiles and track records, the PRI has learned from earlier mistakes. Before Fox’s victory, PRI gubernatorial candidates were more often than not appointed by the party. But Baeza won the nod by winning an open primary election in November. He had three months to campaign before Corral was nominated in a similar primary.

The process was like the successful approach followed by the PRI in late 2002 to nominate Jose Natividad Gonzalez for the pivotal Nuevo Leon governor’s race. He went on to defeat the PAN candidate in the July 2003 general election by a double-digit margin.

“What we are seeing increasingly in the governors’ races is, you need to earn your spurs in your state. Before, the PRI parachuted in candidates who might have made their careers in Mexico City. Now the tendency is to elect people with roots in the state, who know the voters and their problems,” said George Grayson, a government professor and Mexico specialist at William & Mary College in Williamsburg, Va.

“Baeza comes from humble origins and knows that life is tough in the country,” said Amado de Santiago, a 59-year-old plumber.

Meyer of Colegio de Mexico said the string of PAN disappointments meant that the party still had not developed a clear political message to attract poor and peasant voters.

Mentor Tijerines, a consultant who worked in the PRI’s Nuevo Leon and Chihuahua governors’ races, said: “This victory means we have a competitive advantage in the state where the PAN had huge success in 2000. This is all about political geography and the 2006 campaign.”