[Marxism] Election Report- Mexico

["Tony Abdo" <gojack10@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Fri, Jul. 30, 2004
Critical test for Fox's party marred by pre-election violence
By Susana Hayward
Knight Ridder Newspapers

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's political system faces another critical test Sunday
as a coalition led by President Vicente Fox's party tries to end decades of
one-party rule in Oaxaca, one of Mexico's poorest states.

Two people already have died in political violence in the last week in
Oaxaca, and observers are predicting more protests and possible clashes
after Sunday's election.

Voters also go to the polls in the central state of Aguascalientes, where
Fox's National Action Party, known as the PAN, hopes to retain the
governorship in what is widely seen as another test of the president's
lagging popularity.

In southern Oaxaca, Gustavo Cue, the former state interior minister and
ex-mayor of the capital of Oaxaca City, is running under a three-party
alliance of the PAN, the left-of-center Democratic Revolutionary Party, or
PRD, and the leftist Convergence Party.

Cue is campaigning under the phrase "We are all Oaxaca" against Ulises Ruiz,
the state leader for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. The PRI
has governed Oaxaca for 75 years, but polls show the race is a dead heat.

On Tuesday, Cue and Ruiz sympathizers, armed with pistols, machetes and
sticks, clashed in the town of Huautla de Jimenez in a bloody battle that
left two dead - one a PAN member, the other from the PRI - and 20 wounded.
The clashes prompted Fox to put federal and state police forces on alert.

"It's indispensable that this election be successful and peaceful, and may
the best man win," Fox said.

PAN and PRD legislators in Mexico City blamed outgoing Oaxaca Gov. Jose
Murat for the violence, saying he wants to foment fear so people will stay
away from the polls, thereby giving the PRI a better chance. "Throughout his
term, Murat has generated a climate of tension and political violence," said
PRD congressman Pablo Gomez.

Murat made headlines in March when he said he and his bodyguards came under
attack, but a federal investigation by the attorney general's office
concluded in June that Murat's claims were untrue and that most of the
bullet holes in Murat's vehicles came from inside.

Sergio Martinez Chavarria, a spokesman for the national PRI leadership, said
in a written statement that Cue's alliance wants to discredit the election
because "they know they're going to lose."

The fight has national political implications. PRI candidate Ruiz is
Oaxaca's chief campaigner for Roberto Madrazo, the national leader of PRI.
Madrazo wants to be the party's nominee in the 2006 presidential race and
needs an Oaxaca win to boost his chances. More than 1 million people are
registered to vote in the state of 3 million.

In Aguascalientes, where 650,000 are registered to vote, the mood is calm
but tense where the PAN needs to retain the governorship.

Fox's PAN won the statehouse in 1998, the first time the PRI's candidate had
been defeated in the state race. But Fox's party lost three gubernatorial
elections July 4, and a loss in Aguascalientes would signal that the party's
prospects aren't strong for the 2006 presidential contest.

The PAN holds only six governorships, while the PRI holds 19. The PRI is
also the largest faction in Congress. The PRD holds the remaining six
governorships and the mayor's office in Mexico City, considered Mexico's
32nd state. Mexico City's mayor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is the leading
candidate to succeed Fox, according to polls.

Mexican law prohibits the president and governors from running for
re-election.
Fox's party also faces a test in congressional and municipal elections in
the state of Baja California, which the PAN has dominated for 15 years.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fri, Jul. 30, 2004
Mexicans look to town's election for signs of change
BY ALFREDO CORCHADO
The Dallas Morning News

AGUASCALIENTES, Mexico - (KRT) - In a country with soaring crime, high
unemployment and bad schools, Aguascalientes is an anomaly. Life here is
generally good.

Voters who will go to the polls Sunday want to keep it that way. Some will
try to do so by voting across party lines, even though both the city and the
state of the same name have prospered under President Vicente Fox's National
Action Party, or PAN.

Gonzalo Torres Moreno, for example, will split his vote between the PAN,
which has governed the city for six years, and the Institutional
Revolutionary Party known as PRI.

"You don't want the PAN to get too arrogant, or to forget who put them in
office," said Torres, a waiter in the capital city of this central state.
"That's the way democracy should work."

Aguascalientes is one of three states holding elections Sunday. Residents
there and in Oaxaca will vote for governor, state legislature and mayors.
Voters in Baja California will choose state legislators and mayors.

In Baja California, flamboyant PRI candidate Jorge Hank Rhon is in a tough
fight with the PAN's Jorge Ramos for the mayor's job in the city of Tijuana.

In Oaxaca, polls show that the gubernatorial race is a dead heat between the
PRI's Ulises Ruiz and Gabino Cue, the candidate for the PAN and the PRD, or
Party of the Democratic Revolution. The PAN and PRD formed an alliance to
contest this election.

Earlier this week, tensions in rural Huautla, Oaxaca, led to the deaths of
two of the alliance's supporters who had tried to prevent Ruiz from
attending a campaign event. The alliance's loyalists battled PRI devotees
with machetes, bats and stones in a melee in which 20 people were injured.

Ruiz's candidacy had already been damaged by controversy around outgoing
Gov. Jose Murat. The PRI incumbent has drawn derision for claiming that
gunmen tried to kill him March 18. Federal prosecutors are investigating the
alleged assassination attempt as a hoax. One police officer was killed in
the incident.

"The elections represent a microcosm of the country, but in the end it's
really about positioning the nation for the 2006 presidential election,"
said George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William and Mary in
Virginia who co-authored a guide to this year's 14 state elections. The
guide was co-sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies
in Washington, D.C.

Watching the elections closely will be a number of political leaders. They
include Roberto Madrazo, the PRI national president who is leaning toward a
presidential run in 2006 and the PAN's Felipe Calderon, who has already
declared his intention to run for president.

"We will not coast anywhere," Madrazo said in a recent interview: "Gone are
the triumphant days of the PRI when victories were automatic. We have to
compete vote for vote, especially in states like Oaxaca, where the
competition is fierce, and in Aguascalientes, where I think we will surprise
a lot of people."

He attributed the viability of the former ruling party to "candidly
admitting our faults, our errors, our ways."

"We have learned to pick better people and to become again a party of social
causes and not a party of political interests," he said.

At a recent campaign rally in the city of Aguascalientes, an array of PAN
leaders, including Calderon, dismissed talk of any change within the PRI.

"This Sunday we will win in Aguascalientes," Calderon said. "We will win in
Baja California and in Oaxaca. We're going for everything."

In the contest for governor of Aguascalientes, a recent poll by Reforma, a
Mexico City newspaper, shows the PAN's Luis Armando Reynoso Femat holding a
64 percent to 31 percent lead over Oscar Lopez Velarde. Lopez, a former PRI
senator, began campaigning in May after the original candidate dropped out.

The race for Aguascalientes mayor between the PRI's Carlos Lozano de la
Torre and Martin Orozco Sandoval of the PAN appears to be tighter. The
mayoral post is important: About 1 million of the state's 1.2 million people
live in the capital.

Some analysts said the PAN has acquitted itself well in Aguascalientes. The
state hasn't reported a kidnapping all year, for which experts credit a
highly trained police force and good coordination between local and state
police - rare in many parts of the country.

Also, the state has a thriving auto industry, four major universities and a
new stadium for the Necaxa soccer team, which is relocating from Mexico
City.

So far, this year the average income has risen 6.1 percent compared with
2003. There's a thriving middle class, an active civic society and unusually
responsive elected leaders, analysts say. Reforma has named the capital one
of the most livable in the nation.

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