Mexican president's allies lead in key elections

Houston hronicle/AP ^ | July 5, 2010 | OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ and ALEXANDRA OLSON

[SwinneySwitch]

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico — President Felipe Calderon's allies held back a resurgence by Mexico's old ruling party, according to results Monday from state elections marred by drug gang violence so severe a large majority of citizens stayed home in two of the most dangerous border states.

Desperate alliances between Calderon's conservative party and Mexico's leftists seized three stronghold states from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which had run them for more than 80 years.

The party known as the PRI still won nine of the governorships in Sunday's election, showing it remains Mexico's most important force a dozen years after losing national power, and it seemed to remain on track to recapture the presidency in 2012.

Still, the outcome represented no clear gain: the PRI already controlled nine of the states going in.

Calderon's National Action Party, meanwhile, was hurt by a weak economy and revulsion at a wave of drug violence. It won not a single state on its own, and preliminary counts showed it lost the only two of the 12 that it had governed on its own.

Despite Calderon's pleas for Mexicans to vote, the elections displayed the intimidating power of drug cartels: only a third of voters showed up in the country's most violent state, Chihuahua. Drug gangs hung four bodies from bridges in the state capital on election day. Less than 40 percent voted in Tamaulipas, where gubernatorial candidate Rodolfo Torre was killed five days earlier.

Calderon's party and the main leftist party won only where they formed alliances against the PRI — in Sinaloa, Puebla and Oaxaca. In all of those states, they won only by borrowing popular candidates from other parties.

The PRI's defeat in Oaxaca, a heavily indigenous state where the party was in power for eight decades, was highly symbolic.

[SwinneySwitch]

"....only a third of voters showed up in the country's most violent state, Chihuahua. Drug gangs hung four bodies from bridges in the state capital on election day. Less than 40 percent voted in Tamaulipas, where gubernatorial candidate Rodolfo Torre was killed five days earlier."

[dfwgator]

Mexico is a mess no matter which party is in power.

[SwinneySwitch]

Ping!

If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.

[La Lydia]

Swinney, I know Mexico is a violent, corrupt cess-pit, etc. but I see in these results several positive things. For starters, the elections were fairly clean. No one is screaming fraud. The two parties split the victories. No one is threatening to take to the streets because of the results. Fifteen years ago this would have been unthinkable. Things that we take for granted about democracy have put down roots in Mexico.

[AuntB]

“Drug gangs hung four bodies from bridges in the state capital on election day. Less than 40 percent voted in Tamaulipas, where gubernatorial candidate Rodolfo Torre was killed five days earlier.”

With the pandering to Mexico and all points south and the disregard for our own elections as recently shown by the DOJ in it’s refusal to prosecute black panthers at the polls, when we get amnesty we WILL see this in the USA.

[ASOC]

Hard to say anything bad about low Mexican voter turnout - look at the US results...oh, wait.

[SwinneySwitch]

The Texas’ turnout in the 2006 non-presidential election was around 30% and I don’t remember any shooting or hangings. I know a few dead dems voted though.