Analysis : Little ‘Modern’ in Mexico State Vote as PRI Wins Again

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico — “Modernization” has been the battle cry of Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party since it suffered an unprecedented upset in several states during last July’s election for president and a new congress.

President-elect Carlos Salinas de Gortari has called for reforms to make the party that has run Mexico for 60 years more democratic and more appealing in a new era of competitive politics.

But there apparently was little new or modern about the campaign of the PRI, as the party is called, in the Tabasco state governor’s race--the first since Salinas took the helm of the ruling party as the nation’s president-elect.

The PRI has never lost a governorship, and it claims to have won Wednesday’s election with nearly 80% of the vote against the leftist National Democratic Front. The opposition implicitly concedes defeat, but its leaders also charge widespread fraud, claiming that the Democratic Front garnered closer to 35% of the vote.

But while the old-style campaign--with a monopoly on media coverage, manipulation of election laws and anti-Communist slogans--assured the PRI of a sweeping victory in the election for governor, mayors, city councilmen and state congressmen, it may have cost the ruling party dearly in national credibility.

Before the vote, PRI stalwart Rodolfo Gonzalez Guevara accused the Tabasco electoral commission of “preparing fraud” by arbitrarily demanding two years’ residency of all poll watchers in order to limit the opposition’s role. He charged that the PRI-dominated commission also had refused to let the Democratic Front’s various member parties slate common local candidates because the parties had not officially registered as a coalition.

In many cases, the electoral commission decided on its own which of the parties in the Democratic Front would be represented by the opposition candidates on the ballot.

As a result, in many towns Democratic Front supporters had to vote for one party in the governor’s race and another in the mayor’s contest--a complicated move for unsophisticated voters, some of whom are illiterate.

Local newspaper and television coverage was clearly biased in favor of the PRI’s candidate, Salvador Neme Castillo. The opposition candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, charged that he was blocked from buying ads in most media.

PRI officials counter that all was legal and fair. They said the opposition was given time on state television and did not have money to buy its own advertising.

On election day, reporters saw several polling places that lacked opposition representatives. At most sites, reporters observed voters marking their ballots in full public view, a violation of the principle of the secret vote.

Ironically, the open voting indicated that the heavy-handed PRI campaign apparently was unnecessary: Many people were seen marking their ballots for the ruling party. The PRI still has broad support in Tabasco, a relatively wealthy state where the opposition scarcely existed prior to July 6.

“We cannot allow a PRI loss to be the only proof of the credibility of an election,” PRI state party chief Roberto Madrazo said before the vote.

Chance to Prove Credibility

But Tabasco was an opportunity for the PRI to prove its credibility and win an election, by allowing a more open electoral environment.

While the voting illustrated the inflexibility of the PRI, it also highlighted weaknesses of the Democratic Front, a coalition of four diverse leftist parties known by the initials FDN.

The front was drained by disorganization and infighting and, as a coalition, was vulnerable to the PRI’s maneuvering. Several of its candidates abandoned ship--allegedly bought off by the PRI.

“The front has arrived at the end of its usefulness,” said Carlos Monsivais, a political commentator sympathetic to the opposition. “There has to be one party, a real organization. . . . Each group went its own way.”

Unity, said Democrat Front leader Jorge Alcocer, is the only way the opposition can counter the PRI machine, with its party unions, peasant and bureaucrat organizations and domination of electoral commissions.

“This election confirms that as long as the electoral process is in the hands of the PRI government, it is practically impossible that the vote will be respected,” he said. “This country must have electoral reform.”

Until the Democratic Front is stronger, it cannot counter PRI domination of the electoral commissions. The opposition has campaigned to protect the integrity of the vote and, at some point, must be able to tell its supporters that it is doing so.

Official results of Wednesday’s election are expected Sunday.

Before the election, PRI official Fernando del Villar predicted that the Democratic Front would win 11% of the vote. Even the PRI’s count put the opposition total higher than that--an indication that there is support for the FDN that must be channeled into a party structure if it hopes to progress.