PRI Wins Governorship of Mexico’s Most Populous State

Voters in Mexico’s most populous state on Sunday overwhelmingly elected the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s candidate for governor, Enrique Pena Nieto, amid reports of widespread campaign spending abuses.

The election in the state of Mexico was seen as a bellwether for next year’s presidential race, because of the state’s large number of registered voters -- more than 8.8 million -- and because it often reflects national voting patterns. Analysts see the PRI victory as boosting the presidential ambitions of Pena Nieto’s patron, outgoing Gov. Arturo Montiel.

With 75% of the vote counted, Pena Nieto had 47%, comfortably ahead of Ruben Mendoza Ayala of the National Action Party with 25% and Yeidckol Polevnsky of the Democratic Revolution Party with 24%. Turnout was a light 42% and no violence was reported.

“I thank the citizens for their vote and their confidence,” Pena Nieto told followers late Sunday in Toluca, the state capital. “Now one phase concludes and another begins, one of opening and respect for all Mexicans. I promise to try to meet the needs of all citizens.”

In the day’s other gubernatorial election, PRI candidate Ney Gonzalez was running neck-and-neck with the PRD’s Miguel Angel Navarro in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit.

The boyish-looking Pena Nieto proved an effective campaigner who appealed especially to women. But the state congressman also benefited from the inexperience and gaffes of his two main opponents and from millions of dollars in PRI campaign spending, much of it on giveaways to prospective voters. Candidates from the losing parties are expected to contest the results on that basis.

Even in cities like this one where the Democratic Revolution Party is strong and has elected three mayors in a row, the PRI did surprisingly well, capturing 38% of the vote according to early returns.

“I will vote for the PRI because they are people who know how to govern. All we have had under these mayors is more violence and marches in the street,” said homemaker Aida Leal Alvarez as she lined up Sunday morning with her two daughters to vote for Pena Nieto.

Leal Alvarez insisted she had received no handouts in exchange for her vote. But the PRI had been openly trying for weeks to buy voters’ loyalty. On the morning of June 23, a Times reporter saw about 50 women here receive what they described as their regular Thursday morning despensa, or handout, from pickup trucks sent by the PRI. After showing a voting credential, each woman received a bag containing beans, rice, soap, cooking oil, toilet paper and sugar. The trucks had shown up each Thursday since the campaign officially kicked off April 16, several women said.

“Yes, candidate Pena Nieto has helped us, and also relatives of mine near Toluca who have received construction supplies and clothes,” said Maria Contreras, a 45-year-old homemaker, as she waited in line for the handouts. “He is very generous.”

Jose Santos, a Pena Nieto campaign staffer who helped distribute the goods, said he was giving out an average 500 packages of food per day. “There are hundreds more of us who give out food, caps, T-shirts, pens, everything.”

The PRI victory in the state of Mexico with its 15 million residents may affect the dynamics of the PRI presidential nomination process, possibly strengthening Montiel’s challenge to front-runner Roberto Madrazo.

Madrazo, the current leader of the party, has rejuvenated the PRI and built a substantial following after its devastating loss in the 2000 presidential race. The victory by Vicente Fox of the National Action Party, or PAN, marked the first time in 71 years that the PRI failed to win the nation’s top office.

But allegations of campaign fraud have dogged Madrazo throughout his career, and opponents within the party claim he is unelectable. Montiel is one of several PRI governors and one senator fighting Madrazo’s nomination.

The election highlighted the weakness of the PAN and the PRD in this key industrial state. “In a way it was a typical election with the PRI buying victory. But that said, the PRI didn’t win; rather, the PAN and PRD lost it,” said Pamela Starr, a Washington-based academic and author specializing in Mexico.

PAN candidate Mendoza Ayala, 44, was criticized for making crude remarks at campaign rallies and for a stunt that involved taking campaign freebies, including soccer balls, out of a PRI vehicle and giving them instead to his followers, an episode caught on video and endlessly replayed by TV stations.

“To the very conservative electorate he was trying to appeal to, it looked like he was looting,” Starr said.

Traditionally weak here, the PRD gambled on nominating a so-called citizen candidate, Polevnsky, 47, a former chamber of commerce vice president with little political experience. Her weak rapport with local voters and less than stirring stump presence disenchanted voters. She was also forced to explain that she had changed her name because she had been raped by a family member at the age of 12.

Polevnsky’s weak finish also reflected poorly on Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador -- the front-runner in preference polls for next year’s presidential race -- who made several campaign appearances in her behalf.

“It may be indicative of the fact that Lopez Obrador doesn’t have much influence beyond Mexico City if in a neighboring state he is not able to give his candidate any lift whatsoever,” said Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, head of the Mexico Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

Fox was chastised for appearing at a Saturday rally at the Angel of Independence monument in Mexico City to celebrate the fifth anniversary of his victory over the PRI.

Mexican law forbids the president to participate in any campaign activity.

Fox insisted that the celebration was not intended to back a specific candidate. But many questioned the timing of the event, coming on the eve of the crucial state election, and noted that the so-called Democracy Celebration Day had never been observed before. Fox ignored an appeal from the Federal Electoral Institute urging that he not attend.