Heartbeat of Mexico No.149-10/22/97 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source: frontcomunes@laneta.apc.org MEXPAZ ANALYSIS #145 "Heartbeat of Mexico" October 22, 1997 TALE OF TWO ELECTIONS - PRI Wins Big in Tabasco - PAN, PRD Advance in Veracruz - A Tranquil Veracruz Contrasts with Violence in Tabasco Elections held on Sunday, October 19, in Veracruz and Tabasco painted two radically different portraits on the state of electoral democracy in Mexico. In Veracruz, mostly clean, uneventful polling lead to opposition victories in a majority of the state's 210 municipalities. Tabasco elections, in contrast, were marred by fraud and election-day violence, which assured PRI control of the state legislature and all 17 Tabasco municipalities. In Veracruz, opposition parties won a total of 107 of 210 cities and towns that account for 68.5% of the state population, including some of the most commercially important cities and ports. In Tabasco, on the other hand, the PRD lost four of the 17 municipalities it had governed. The breakdown for both states is as follows: Veracruz: - PRI: 103 municipalities; 38.9% of total vote (877,881 ballots), including Poza Rica, San Andres Tuxtla and Santiago Tuxtla (the latter two resort towns previously in PRD hands. - PRD: 59, in which 34% of the citizenry lives; 30.09% of total vote (677,000). PRD victories include the state capital, Jalapa, oil refining towns of Minatitlan and Coatzacoalcos (where the father of international super-star actress Salma Hayek lost out to his PRD competitor), the port of Tuxpan and Cosoleacaque, site of last year's conflict over proposed sales of an important petrochemical complex. - PAN: 39, with 32% of state inhabitants; 20.09% total vote. The PAN scored big in the historic port of Veracruz, and the industrial corridor comprising Cordoba and Orizaba. - PT (Labor Party): 5 - PVEM (Greens): 2, including Catemaco, famed for medicinal healers and witchcraft. - PPS (Popular Socialist Party): 1 Election results were consonant with the nation-wide tendency toward diversification of the vote and establishment of a three-party system. While the PRD is indisputably the second electoral power in Veracruz, the PAN's fortunes are clearly on the rise: the party now governs 39 municipalities, whereas it had controlled only 27 before. The abstention rate was reported. Tabasco: The PRI won the "whole shebang" ("carro completo") in the state governed by infamous political boss Roberto Madrazo: 17 of 17 municipalities, 18 of 18 state electoral districts (although surely the opposition will be awarded some of the 13 proportional representation seats which round out the 31 congressional posts). However, as they say in sports, the game was closer than the score. The PRD won around 43% of the statewide vote, compared to 49% for the PRI. Amalia Garcia, member of the PRD's National Executive Council, expressed disbelief, calling it "incredible" that the PRD hadn't won a single municipality or legislative seat with such a high percentage of the vote. However, elections were plagued by numerous incidents of violence. In Balancan, on the Guatemalan border, PRI and PAN members were involved in a shootout when militants of the latter party detained trucks driven by PRI members that contained food packages to be distributed on election day. Furthermore, a shock group armed with machetes and night sticks terrorized the municipality of Comalcalco, when 200 men who had been imbibing alcohol in the municipal theater threatened poll officials with imprisonment, preventing potential voters from casting their ballots. The shock group operated with the apparent protection of local police, who reportedly told the agitators to "hide your machetes =85 but there's no problem, since you belong to our party" (La Jornada, October 20). There were other incidents, such as tear gas launched against PRD members in another Comalcalco community, and distribution of a magazine that defamed PRD national president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, from Tabasco, as a "murderer [and] child rapist". Meanwhile, complaints of election fraud --mostly to do with pre-election use of public resources and government control over communications media-- called into question the legitimacy of an absolute PRI victory. Lopez Obrador announced that the PRD's strategy will be to challenge the legality of the entire electoral process, rather than a piecemeal, city by city approach. The party rejected post-electoral violence, declaring that it would impugn the elections through strictly statutory means. State electoral councillor Joaquin Diaz Esnaurrizar added more fuel to the fire in admitting that elections were slanted towards the PRI: "Governmental propaganda in favor of the PRI, both useful gifts and advertising messages in the media, was inequitable for the rest of the parties." ANALYSIS Veracruz and Tabasco exemplify two tendencies present on today's national political scene. On the one hand, Veracruz elections confirm a relatively new political pluralism established in local elections in 1995 and 1996, culminating in an opposition-dominated Congress elected on July 6, 1997. On the other, Tabasco represents the reluctance of PRI hard-line sectors to abandon corrupt electoral practices. Madrazo repeated the feats that got him elected governor in 1994: shameless manipulation of government resources, massive investment of public funds and unflinching use of PRI militants to intimidate the opposition. His administration, and the party that sustains it, are more an electoral machine than representative political actors. If Veracruz buttresses the emerging electoral democracy, the Tabasco of Roberto Madrazo undermines both electoral fair play and the growing consensus for democracy within his own party. In this sense, calls by some PRI federal legislators for "maturity" on the part of the opposition in accepting electoral results bode ill for attempts to reform the official party. Why does the national PRI structure permit --or at least, fail to protest against-- such blatant illegality in Tabasco? Clearly, the state's strategic importance as an oil producer and exporter make the official party loath to relinquish control in the region, a factor that also explains widespread fraud in Campeche gubernatorial elections last July, where PRD candidate Layda Sansores held high hopes of carrying the state. Veracruz and Tabasco, a tale not only of two elections, but of two possible destinies for Mexico. David Crow Javier Medina Fronteras Comunes e-mail: frontcomunes@laneta.apc.org ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-10.22.97-23:27:13-19754