Leftist Party Takes Lead in Two Mexican Elections

Mexico’s main leftist party appeared to be winning two gubernatorial races Sunday, wresting the southern state of Guerrero away from its longtime rulers and keeping control of Baja California Sur in a boost for the party’s prospects in next year’s presidential election.

Exit polls and incomplete returns gave the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, a solid margin in both states over the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which dominated Mexican politics for most of the last century and is known as the PRI. Partial returns showed the PRI retaining the governorship of the Caribbean coastal state of Quintana Roo.

The PRI refused to concede defeat in Guerrero and Baja California Sur as vote-counting progressed late into the night.

Sunday’s contest in Guerrero was the hardest fought and most closely watched as a bellwether for the race to succeed President Vicente Fox, whose election in 2000 ended the PRI’s 71-year grip on the presidency.

By law, Fox is ineligible for reelection and his center-right National Action Party, the PAN, has been weakened by his failure to deliver on many promised reforms.

The PRD and PRI poured extraordinary resources into the Guerrero campaign, which was marked by charges of vote-buying and intimidation on both sides. When gunmen in Acapulco killed three policemen and a teenage bystander in drive-by shootings Saturday -- incidents apparently unrelated to the campaign -- the two rival parties accused each other of responsibility.

The PRI has run the impoverished state for decades, cementing the loyalty of rural voters through farm subsidies and mobilizing them on election day with a strong grass-roots organization. The PRD has slowly gained control of big-city governments over the past generation and this time nominated a popular former mayor of Acapulco, Zeferino Torreblanca, as its candidate.

Torreblanca claimed victory Sunday night after taking a 57% to 40% lead over Sen. Hector Astudillo of the PRI with more than half the vote counted.

If his lead holds, it would extend the base of Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the PRD’s presidential hopeful.

He has led other national contenders in opinion polls, but his party governs just three of Mexico’s 31 states along with the capital.

Roberto Madrazo, the PRI leader and leading contender for the party’s presidential nomination, campaigned heavily for his candidate in Guerrero. Late Sunday, the PRI said its exit polls showed the race there a dead heat.

In Baja California Sur, an exit poll by the respected Mitofsky organization gave the PRD’s Narciso Agundez, a former mayor of the resort of Los Cabos and distant cousin of incumbent Gov. Leonel Cota Montano, a 10-percentage-point lead over his PRI opponent.

In Quintana Roo, the PRI’s Felix Gonzalez, a former mayor of Cozumel, was winning the governor’s race by a 13-percentage-point margin, partial results showed.

Fox’s party was the biggest loser Sunday, finishing third in all three states. In Guerrero, it was polling a mere 1%. The party’s leading presidential hopeful, Interior Minister Santiago Creel, is viewed as a strong potential rival to Lopez Obrador and Madrazo, but the party itself lacks a nationwide grass-roots organization.