One of Mexico's richest runs for Tijuana mayor
Associated Press
May. 28, 2004 12:00 AM
TIJUANA, Mexico - The two major candidates for Tijuana's mayorship officially kicked off their campaigns as a millionaire racetrack owner held a private party at a discotheque and a conservative ex-City Council member opened his race headquarters.
Jorge Hank Rhon, a member of one of the country's richest and most politically powerful families, once was linked by U.S. authorities to drug smugglers. Those authorities described him as "a significant criminal threat to the United States." Washington later disavowed the report that made that statement.
Rhon is running with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico from 1929 until losing to President Vicente Fox in 2000. The party has had a hard time in Tijuana, where it has not controlled the mayorship in 15 years.
The candidate for Fox's National Action Party (PAN) is Jorge Ramos, who stepped down from city government to run and has a commanding lead in recent newspaper public opinion polls.
The election is on Aug. 1, and electoral rules prohibited Hank Rhon, Ramos and all other candidates from running advertisements and holding campaign events until Monday.
The mayoral vote was originally scheduled for July 4, but city officials agreed to push the date back after local merchants complained that a ban on the sale of alcohol during election days would cost the city millions in lost tourism dollars from Californians crossing the border to drink and dance the night away over the United States' Fourth of July weekend.
PRI officials circumvented the rules in recent weeks, however, by running ads for "a campaign without a candidate" on local radio and television stations and pouring money into publicity for the Caliente greyhound racetrack, which is owned by Hank Rhon.
Supporters also hung a mammoth banner in support of Hank Rhon at the track.
In a recent interview, Hank Rhon shrugged off suggestions that his controversial past could cost him votes and said he wanted to turn Tijuana into a Mexican version of its border neighbor, San Diego, by slashing crime rates and attracting heaps of private investment from Mexican and foreign businesses.
Worth a reported $500 million in U.S. dollars, Hank Rhon kicked off his campaign just after midnight Monday morning at Balak, an exclusive Tijuana night spot in a mall he owns close to the border.
There the 48-year-old father of 18 addressed a large group of young voters.
Ramos spent his first official day on the campaign trail at a morning Mass, then headed to one of the city's best-known landmarks, the Gran Hotel, to inaugurate his campaign headquarters, dubbing the building "The Blue House," in honor of his party's colors, blue and white.
A number of smaller parities with little presence in Tijuana have formed an anti-crime alliance with Hank Rhon. They include the Green Party and the Worker's Party but are not expected to win many votes for the PRI candidate.
Thats really very funny.
There was a Catholic bishop executed a few years ago. The hit men left town on a plane accompanied by Rhon's son. (I don't think they ever figured out why they hit the bishop). The meetup point after the hit was Rhon's stadium.
And then there is the hit on the Zeta owner, and possible involvement in this hit.
Rhon is the richest man in Mexico, and the single most powerful industrialist.
I love latin america. You find all the same elements in the US, but down south they are right there on the surface, its like looking at a machine with the cover plates removed. You can see all the moving parts, and what connects to what. Its fascinating.