Sympathy for the PRI?

Priístas head for the exits after a June 26 campaign rally in Tuxtepec, Oaxaca, featuring State of Mexico Gov. Enrique Peña Nieto.

Federico Arreola, whose incessant tweets - almost all of the anti-Calderón, pro-López Obrador variety -  can be insufferable, often pens excellent columns for Sendero del Peje, a news organization with obvious López Obrador sympathies.

In his July 1 column, he calls the June 28 assassination of Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) gubernatorial candidate Rodolfo Torre Cantú in Tamaulipas the party's only significant "campaign act" in any of the 12 state and local elections scheduled for July 4.

A series of leaked phone conversations, suggesting improper campaign meddling and use of social programs for electoral purposes by PRI governors, had cast an unfavourable light on the PRI in some of its most notorious bastions of retrograde politics such as Veracruz and Oaxaca. Now, instead of being viewed as presiding over evil empires and stopping at nothing to retain power, the PRI has some sympathy on its side.

Additionally, the assassination is expected to diminish voter turnout - a factor that always benefits the PRI.

"Fear," Arreloa wrote, "Works in favor of the PRI." 

The party depends heavily in many states on its "voto duro" (firm vote) of loyalists, campesinos, unionized workers and government employees - whose jobs depend on the PRI retaining power. The voto duro, along with those lured by its vote-buying schemes and motivated by coercion, is usually enough to win (at the ballot box) unless voter turnout is hight.

The PRI, it must be said, knows how to turn out its vote and is famed in places such as Oaxaca for its year-round organizing and ability to ingratiate itself into the life of every small town and ejido in the state. As one priísta in Oaxaca told me recently, "The PRI organizes all the time. The other parties start organizing three months before an election."

Another factor to watch is the dependability of the PRI vote. As political science professor Federico Estévez of ITAM is fond of pointing out: The PRI vote has stayed roughly the same over the years, while the PAN and PRD votes have varied. The only exception to that might have been the 2006 presidential election, when the party had an unpopular candidate and many priístas drifted over to the campaigns of PRD candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the PAN.

Expect the  PRI's voto duro to deliver on July 4 and the PAN and PRD votes to remain low.

Independents frozen out of elections

BY DAVID AGREN
The News

Elisa de Anda wanted to run for a Chamber of Deputies seat in the July 5 midterm elections as an independent candidate. The recent law school graduate and Coyoacán native met many of the prerequisites: she was of legal age, a Mexican citizen and no criminal record. She says that no skeletons could have come tumbling out of her closet ahead of election day. She even drafted an electoral platform that touched on issues such as the re-election of lawmakers.

But on May 2, her candidate application was rejected by the local office of the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, in District 23. Apparently, she lacked one thing: the backing of one of the country's eight registered political parties. The IFE also rejected at least 15 other independent candidacies from other parts of the country, according to de Anda, who has now taken her fight for inclusion on the ballot to the electoral tribunal. A ruling is expected within days.De Anda's fight to be an independent candidate highlights the enormous influence that political parties wield over the electoral system and the unwillingness of the political elite to permit the participation of potential wildcard candidates who could bring their own resources and personal popularity to election campaigns.

Her struggle also highlights another potential shortcoming of the 2007 electoral reforms, which technically allow for the participation of independent candidates, but makes such candidacies all but impossible.

"It's a party cartel system," said ITAM political science professor Federico Estévez."

It has been the case from the outset of the political reform in electoral matters . [that] independent candidates in federal elections are not allowed. They must be nominated by a party."

Only the southeastern state of Yucatán allows independent candidates in gubernatorial, legislative and municipal elections. And one independent candidate, Adonay Avila Sierra, captured the May 2007 mayoral race in Yobaín. Some indigenous villages, particularly in Oaxaca, employ traditional governance system based on "usos y costumbres," or uses and customs, that often doesn't involve mainstream political parties - or any party at all.

Writing in a non-registered candidate's name is also possible, but the IFE never divulges who receives the most informal support. Estévez suspects that electoral officials might be embarrassed to acknowledge how many votes telenovela stars and figures such as the pontificating television clown Brozo receive.

PARTY POWER
The eight political parties enjoy enormous economic and legal power in Mexico's political system, which has only become competitive over the past 20 years with the loosening of the Institutional Revolutionary Party's grip.

Competition came, in part, through electoral reforms that included the introduction of lawmakers being elected through a proportional representation system known as the "plurinominal" in the late 1970s. The mixed political system - having 300 members elected from districts to the Chamber, while having another 200 members elected through the plurinominal - makes independent candidacies difficult, according to ITAM political science professor Jeffrey Weldon. "Proportional representation is designed to be distributed among parties," he said.

The electoral reforms approved in late 2007 only strengthened the parties even more. The new rules gave exclusive access to the radio and TV airwaves for promotional purposes. Advocacy groups and individuals cannot buy airtime to promote public policy issues because that could be interpreted as an attack on a registered party.

Even if independents like de Anda could register, her ability to promote her candidacy would be limited. And the parties, which receive all radio and TV airtime free of charge, have another advantage: money. The eight parties will split more than 3.5 billion pesos in public funding this year.Still, de Anda finds no issue with having strong, well-funded political parties; she only objects to the current electoral rules, which she says violate Article 35 of the Constitution."

Parties are fundamental pillars of our democracy, but they should be the vehicle for citizen participation," de Anda said.

NOT THE FIRST
Article 35 states that all citizens have the right to vote and to "be elected." But aspiring independent candidates have been frozen out of the political process in recent years - even though such candidates were common in the first half of the last century.

Discount pharmaceutical baron Víctor González Torres, better known as Dr. Simi, launched an unregistered independent candidacy in early 2006 after the Federal Electoral Tribunal, or Trife, denied him the presidential nomination of the party then known as Alternativa. (It is now called the Social Democratic Party, or PSD.) Even with his vast personal resources, Dr. Simi failed to make much of an impact; it's unknown how many people wrote his name on the ballot.

More prominently, former Foreign Relations Secretary Jorge Castañeda attempted to run as an independent candidate in the 2006 presidential election. The IFE denied his request in 2004, so he petitioned the Supreme Court for an injunction known as an "amparo" against parts of the electoral code. The Supreme Court ruled against him, saying, in part, that it lacked jurisdiction to rule on the matter.

Castañeda ended up without his desired candidacy in 2006, but he took his case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which is based in Costa Rica. The court ruled last summer that his rights had been violated, but, according to a Foreign Relations Secretariat press release, the court also said that the 2007 electoral reforms had rectified some of his initial grievances.

Still, the court asked that some laws be modified to clarify jurisdictional issues on the subject of independent candidacies and that Castañeda receive compensation for his legal expenses. No laws have been modified since the ruling, and Castañeda told reporters in January that he was still awaiting compensation.

DIFFERENT APPROACH
De Anda says that she has not been in contact with Castañeda and has found some faults with his legal strategy of pursuing an amparo. Instead, she has taken her case to the Trife, which acts as a final referee in political and electoral matters."

For the first time, the electoral tribunal is going to have to rule if the [electoral code] is violating a constitutional or human right, than any of us can be voted for," she said.

Analysts differ on de Anda's prospects for success. ITAM's Weldon has his doubts because the Constitution also gives rights to political parties and the nature of the tribunal, which only adjudicates electoral and political matters and interprets the electoral code. "They're really not supposed to make major constitutional decisions," Weldon said.

PRI dominates in Hidalgo

BY DAVID AGREN
The News

Early returns from the central state of Hidalgo showed voters solidly backing the Institutional Revolutionary Party in Sunday´s municipal elections.

The PRI and its election allies were leading in 50 of the 84 races; seven municipalities had yet to report returns. Notable results included the PRI leading in the capital, Pachuca, and the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, leading in Zimapán, where the leader of a civic group opposed to the construction of a toxic waste dump was running for the left-wing party.

Sunday´s results appeared certain to further cement the PRI´s hold on Hidalgo where it held 35 municipal governments on election day. The party swept all 18 directly elected seats in the state Congress during legislative elections earlier this year and holds the governor´s office.

Chicanery was also rife during the election period. The state Attorney General´s Office reported receiving at least 50 complaints of election-related incidents, including murder, improper police detentions and the enticing of voters with free rides and giveaways.

PAN officials in Pachuca alleged that four out-of-state election observers were detained and roughed up by local police. A Saturday confrontation between the PRI and PRD campaigns in the municipality of La Mi-sión resulted in a police commander being shot dead. Two PRI operatives - brothers of the local PRI candidate - were named as suspects in the shooting by state judicial authorities. Gunfire was also reported in the municipality of Huejutla.

Hidalgo, a small rugged state north of the Mexico City metropolitan area just beyond the State of Mexico, usually opts for the PRI, although it supported the PRD campaign of former Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the 2006 election and opposition parties had won a few municipal races over the past decade.

Analysts predicted the PRI would benefit in Sunday´s local elections based on its party unity and its well-oiled patronage machine while its opponents were suffering from disunity and disorganization.

While AMLO cries foul, his opponents spend big

In the months leading up to last year's presidential election, wealthy Mexicans sat on their wallets, putting big-ticket purchases on hold. Now they're spending again - and spending big.

German automaker Mercedes Benz reported an 83-percent increase in Mexican sales during June 2007 when compared to the same month last year - which just happened to precede the July 2 vote.

A Cox News feature on Mexico's ultra wealthy described how the luxury car business was impacted by the political cycle:

Just off of Avenue Presidente Masaryk, the Rodeo Drive of Mexico, sits the Mulsanne luxury car dealership. Inside is the crown jewel, a bright yellow Lamborghini Murcielago that sells for $300,000.

The manager, Jeronimo Irurita, says the luxury car business is tied tightly to the whims of the daily news: a rash of kidnappings will send sales plummeting (although his fleet of bulletproof cars do better in those times).

But worse, he says, is the threat of a left-wing government.

"If the left had won, many of my clients would have moved to Miami," he said. "This business would have disappeared, or it would have changed to cheaper cars."

With Calderon's victory, business picked up nicely, and the yellow Lamborghini sold quickly to a Mexico City businessman, he said.

It's not just fancy cars. I recall speaking with the organizers of the EduCanada expositions, who reported robust attendance at this year's events in Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey after experiencing a substantial decline in 2006. The reason: Election uncertainty. One school division superintendent told me that just as many students came to his city as before, but that their parents opted to pay the entire tuition up front, forgoing the monthly payment option.

Anyway, this Mercedes Benz news comes during the same week as Mexico's "legitimate president" Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador held a rally in the Zocalo to mark the one-year anniversary of the July 2 election he says was fraudulent.

Unfortunately, an El Universal poll showed that if Mexicans were to vote today, Felipe Calderon would win by a 15-percentage-point margin. AMLO would still receive 30 percent, though. Thus, writing him off as a spent force would be premature. Yes he shed roughly 15 percent of his support, but 30 percent of Mexicans still back him. Many of them believe the election results were not legitimate. AMLO will persist, but his biggest problem is perhaps a lack of PRD unity. As Sergio Sarmiento pointed out in his Grupo Reforma column this week, none of the PRD governors attended AMLO's July 1 rally in the Zocalo. And look no further than the strife in Zacatecas for proof of problems in the PRD. The PAN has unity problems too, but they seem to close ranks when it matters.

Durango archbishop: Not voting is a mortal sin

The archbishop of Durango, Mexico, Hector Gonzalez Martinez, told reporters that not voting is a mortal sin, after casting his vote in the northern Mexican state's local election on Sunday. Catholic leaders in Mexico have previous encouraged the faithful to participate in elections and vote for parties that promote Catholic values - usually not the PRD. But calling absenteeism a sin sets a new standard.

As the Mexfiles blog playfully points out, "48% of the state is expected to put their souls in peril."

The PRI-Green alliance should come out as the big winners in Durango, a state famous for being the scene of many old Western movies. The PRI also looks to be doing well in Chihuahua.

In Zacatecas state, a traditional PRD hotbed, the left-leaning party was trailing in the state capital of Zacatecas to the PAN, but claimed a majority of the municipalities. Previously to taking the state capital, the only panista with any notoriety in Zacatecas was Andres Bermudez, the migrant-turned-millionaire mayor of Jerez, who is better known as the Tomato King. (He now sits in the federal Congress.) Perhaps in a sign of how unremarkable his run as municipal president (mayor) of Jerez was, the town swung back to the PRD.

Internal bickering - nothing new for the PRD - has been common Zacatecas and no doubt played a role in the election outcomes.

Adios, President

Adios, Presidente

A look back at six unremarkable years of Vicente Fox

David Agren December 4, 2006

Cantina owner Ramon Garcia once held high hopes for Mexican President Vicente Fox. He supported Fox not once but three times, as Fox previously ran for governor in Garcia's home state of Guanajuato before successfully deposing the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 2000. But with time, Garcia, like many Mexicans, grew disillusioned as Fox repeatedly stumbled and failed to implement much of the change promised during the heady days of his presidential campaign.

"He wasn't born dumb," Garcia commented, before adding, "Fox just never knew how to be president."

Garcia pointed to his ailing San Miguel de Allende bar business as proof of Fox's unfulfilled promises of creating prosperity. He said his clientele, mostly working-class folk from nearby barrios and surrounding ranchos, lacks the purchasing power of past years. Good jobs are still scarce.

Fox left office on Friday after six stable but unremarkable years of governance – if you don't account the early accomplishment of outsting the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and improving the macroeconomic climate. Despite running on an agenda of change, much of the old Mexico he promised to banish stubbornly persists, perhaps nowhere more visibly than in Oaxaca, where a teachers' strike descended into a battle between disgruntled leftists and the state's corrupt PRI governor. Inaction, a failure to broker deals with a divided Congress and a tendency to avoid conflict will no doubt go down as some of his biggest shortcomings. But many of Fox's problems stemmed from the high expectations created by his presidential campaign.

"He was an imprudent president incapable of biting his tongue,” said Marco Antonio Cortes, director of the political science department at the University of Guadalajara.

A gifted campaigner and lousy politician, the former Coca-Cola executive effectively turned the 2000 presidential race into a referendum on 71 years of PRI rule, coining the slogan, “¡Ya!” (loosely translated: now, or enough). He also was all things to all people and in the euphoria of seeing the PRI unseated – a feat compared to landing a man on the moon – pretty much anything he said seemed possible. Governing, however, proved more difficult than winning office.

"Fox never had a serious plan for governing,” said Dan Lund, president of Mund Americas, a Mexico City market research firm. Almost from the start, “There was a sense of drift that began to set in.”

Opposition lawmakers immediately seized on the president's poor political instincts and unwillingness to wield power like his predecessors. Much of Fox's agenda got bogged down in legislative gridlock. He quickly became a lame duck president.

His unwillingness to act decisively extended beyond partisan politics as he repeatedly backed down from confrontations. In 2002, he abandoned plans for a new Mexico City airport after machete-wielding campesinos refused to cooperate. Left-leaning presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador shut down central Mexico City for six weeks over the summer to protest alleged election fraud. Fox later fled the capital during the fiestas patrias (national holidays) rather than confront Lopez Obrador supporters camped outside of the traditional spot the president delivers the grito (the annual reenactment of Miguel Hidalgo's 1810 shout for independence). The Oaxaca conflict simmered for months, but Fox refused to send in the federal police until an American activist/journalist was shot dead in late October.

Perhaps most infamously, Fox said he'd resolve the Chiapas crisis in 15 minutes. Six years later it's still unresolved, although jungle-dwelling rebel subcomandante Marcos is now a peripheral figure, better loved by foreign lefties than Mexicans outside of Chiapas.Economically the country stagnated, although 2006 has been promising in terms of job creation. Growth averaged just 2.5 percent annually during the Fox years – a far cry from the seven percent promised. Migrants still decamp the campo (countryside) in large numbers. (The president promised to achieve an immigration deal with the United States, but 9/11 derailed those hopes.) Fox spoke of job creation, but the informal economy is as robust as ever. Monopolies and duopolies – most notably in telecommunications, broadcasting and brewing – still gouge Mexican consumers. Pemex, the state-owned oil company, is sorely lacking investment. Unions wield as much power as ever.

"We've got more macroeconomic stability, but that's all we've got,” Lund said. "Monopolies and privileges are braking – if not absolutely impeding – economic growth.”

Still, some of the macroeconomic figures are impressive. Inflation dipped below three percent, banks now issue fixed-interest rate loans, the peso failed to crash and the stock market tripled. Fox also drove down the budget deficit.

"He deserves credit, but not all of the credit that's been attributed to him,” said Marco Antonio Cortes. "He's been lucky.”

High oil prices swelled profits at Pemex, the government's main cash cow. (The company remits more than 60 percent of its gross income to the Mexican government, leaving little cash for exploration or maintenance.) Remittances from Mexicans abroad also accelerated, going from less than $10 billion in 2002 to a projected $24 billion in 2006.

Stability aside, Cortes remarked, "(Fox) hasn't achieved any of his important projects."

But that didn't stop the president from returning to what he did best: campaigning. Los Pinos (the presidency) aired an endless stream of TV and radio commercials and erected signs along many of the Republic's major highways boasting of the “Gobierno de Cambio” (government of change). Many Mexicans didn't believe it, but Fox remained somewhat popular. The propaganda, though, confused the residents of one Veracruz hamlet, who changed their town's name to Licenciado Vicente Fox Quesada in a bid to avoid missing out on the supposed largess flowing from Los Pinos. (More importantly for one resident commenting in Mexico City newspaper El Universal: “Most of the town is illiterate and this is one of the few names everyone could remember.”)

Fox's successor, Felipe Calderon, also spoke of change and made numerous promises during the 2006 presidential race. Unlike Fox, many analysts, including Cortes, give Calderon a better chance of succeeding.

"(Calderon's) intelligent, an able negotiator (and) much more prudent," Cortes said. Perhaps more importantly, "He thinks a lot more prior to opening his mouth."

David Agren is a freelance journalist living in Guadalajara

This article appeared in Reason

U.S. election stirs passions among ex-pats in Ajijic

Photo by Steven H. Miller

BY DAVID AGREN
El Universal
Domingo 05 de noviembre de 2006

AJIJIC, Jal. - Wanting to cast a vote in the upcoming U.S. midterm races, St. Paul, Minnesota, native Mary Jo Oberg dropped in at a voter-registration drive being held at the Lake Chapala Society (LCS) in Ajijic to fill out an absentee ballot request just three weeks before election day.
She had requested a ballot previously, but it failed to arrive at her La Manzanilla, Jalisco, home in a timely fashion. While filling out the forms in the lush LCS garden, she described the cumbersome process as "not complicated," but "very legal."

Although the voting-abroad process generated a seemingly endless stream of complaints in Ajijic, passions flared when talk turned to the parties on the ballots - more specifically: the direction the United States is heading, the war in Iraq and the U.S. president.

"I´m very interested in the election because I´d like to see some changes in the policies coming out of the U.S.," Oberg said.

IMMENSE INTEREST

Like the 2004 contest, which produced a charged atmosphere in the Lake Chapala area (Lakeside), the 2006 election is also generating immense interest, even though it´s a mid-term election and the campaigning has been less intense.

Last time around, George P. Bush, the U.S. president´s nephew, and Diana Kerry, the sister of Democratic candidate John Kerry, stumped for expatriate votes in Mexico. U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza drew criticism after delivering a speech in Lakeside that many Chapala-area Democrats considered partisan. Friendships reportedly dissolved over political differences.

OPINIONS DIVIDED

This time around, opinions are split once again - not so much along partisan lines, but instead about U.S. President George W. Bush and the war in Iraq.

"It´s easier to identify the pro-Bush and anti-Bush people," said Clifford Rogers, an independent voter, who resides in Ajijic.

"And the two groups aren´t speaking."

New York state native Phil Pillsworth took that description a step further, saying, "I think you could say it´s war versus anti-war."

Pillsworth, who along with his wife Mary were previously Peace Corps volunteers in Brazil, figured left-leaning voters outnumbered their conservative counterparts in Lakeside.

"There´s a certain kind of person that would live abroad and they tend to be liberal," he explained.

His assessment was echoed by Debra Lattanzi Shutika, an English professor and ethnographer at George Mason University in Virginia, who studies migration between the United States and Mexico.

"In general, the (expatriates) I encounter tend to be more liberal than conservative," she commented, referring to the migration trend for all of Mexico and not specifically Lakeside.

GAUGING SUPPORT

Norm Pifer, chair of Republicans Abroad at Lake Chapala objected to portrayals of conservatives as non-travelers. Supporters of his party, he said, generally keep their political views and affiliations to themselves. After his chapter was founded in 2004, Pifer recalled, "A lot of people discovered they weren´t the only Republicans at Lakeside."

Both Democrats Abroad and Republicans Abroad are well represented at Lakeside. Gauging which party draws more support is difficult to ascertain.

"It´s a real mixed bag," Pifer said, adding that local Democrats tend to be more "vocal" and have been organized for longer. "It´s a small fringe group making all the noise."

An Ajijic resident since 2003, he figured most long-time denizens tilt toward the Democrats or, "Whatever party extends Medicare benefits," while the more recent arrivals have diverse political views.

Even with Republicans arriving in larger numbers than before, fortunes for the party at Lakeside, like those for their counterparts north of the border, may be sagging in the short term - something Pifer acknowledged.

"A lot of people, including Republicans, are leaning away from the Republican Party."

Local Democrats, on the other hand, were decidedly upbeat about their prospects. When asked how things were going, Kathie Coull, chair of the Democrats Abroad at Lake Chapala, responded, "Fantastic."

"I´ve gotten beyond excited to just plain giddy."

VOTER DRIVES

To facilitate voting, Democrats Abroad organized a voter registration drive open to all U.S. citizens in the months leading up to the election. Many people, though, waited until the last minute to request ballots - and wound up disappointed.

"We bend over backwards to do whatever we can," said Madelyn Fisher of Democrats Abroad, who helped organize voter registration in Ajijic.

"But there´s only so much we can do."

The ease of voting seemingly depends on the state - or in some cases, the county - involved. Some jurisdictions stopped accepting ballot requests almost a month before voting.

"It´s a very messy and confusing process," said Luis Miranda, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, which established a web site that simplified voting for expatriates.

"You have to walk people through it."

Miranda added that his party was actively courting expatriate voters. "We can´t take a single thing for granted," he said.

LOW-KEY EVENTS

Despite the presence of approximately 1 million U.S. citizens in Mexico (by some estimates), the Chapala chapters of Democrats Abroad and Republicans Abroad both seemingly arouse little attention within their parent organizations. Local Democrats tried to lure the 2007 Democrats Abroad conference to Lakeside, but lost out to Heidelberg, Germany.

"There are more Democrats Abroad in Europe and they´re working," Kathie Coull explained, adding that unlike most Lakeside Democrats, "They´re not retirees."

Fundraising and membership events are also low key, usually consisting of speeches by local speakers or, in the case of the Democrats, documentary screenings, which, according to Norm Pifer, have included offerings from Michael Moore.

"They recycle that film so many times," he commented.

He said Republican functions at Lakeside "default to the social because we simply can´t afford US$25,000 to bring a speaker down here."

But even with both parties diligently organizing their adherents - Pifer defined his organization´s mandate as "getting Republicans to vote" and not to "change minds" - he said some expatriates simply tune out and stop following U.S. affairs after spending so much time abroad.

"A lot of people here leave the U.S. back at the border."

PRD alleges fraud in Tabasco

Barely 100 days after the PRD, led by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, narrowly lost the federal election, the left-leaning party fell well short of victory in last Sunday's gubernatorial race in Tabasco, Lopez Obrador's home state. In a swift reversal of fortune, PRD support dropped by 34 percent, or 165,000 votes, despite the best efforts of Lopez Obrador, who campaigned recently in the small, but oil-rich state.

Lopez Obrador, who lost a scandalous 1994 gubernatorial race in Tabasco, is receiving much of the blame as critics, both in the PRD and outside of the party, castigate his post-election protesting and assailing of Mexico's electoral institutions. Analysts are largely accusing Lopez Obrador of inadvertently tarnishing his party's image - Tabasco being the first example of that - and putting his own interests ahead of the PRD's in an effort to prove fraud in the federal race.

Sergio Sarmiento somewhat harshly wrote in today's Mural (Guadalajara), "In a short time, Lopez Obrador has revived the viloent image of the PRD as a party that demonizes institutions and uses roadblocks as a weapon of political pressure."

Other were more charitable. An article in The Herald Mexico pointed out the PRD ran an unpopular candidate, who had lost two previous gubernatorial races. (The 2000 election results were annulled, but the PRI won again in a re-vote.)

The PRI, which brought a sordid past in Tabasco politics, won the race, although unseemly allegations of vote-buying and harassment surfaced. While encouraging and a boost for the troubled party, it only proves the PRI can win on the state level and hardly signals a national revival.