cartel-plagued state of Guerrero said they were confident of victory
as early returns trickled in late Sunday from an election shadowed by
corruption scandals, political violence and the drug war.
The vote in Guerrero, home to the resort city of Acapulco and a
battleground for feuding drug gangs, was the culmination of an
acrimonious campaign between two former party allies and
second-cousins. The first of six gubernatorial elections this year in
Mexico, it sets the stage for the 2012 presidential election.
The first preliminary results gave an edge to Angel Aguirre of the
leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD. With 55 percent of polls
reporting, Aguirre had about 57 percent of the vote, compared to some
42 percent for his rival, Manuel Anorve.
"All the trends favor us in an irreversible manner," Aguirre said earlier.
Anorve, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, made similar remarks.
The preliminary count was to continue into the night, with a
definitive result not to be announced until Wednesday.
If the trend holds, the PRD would retain control of Guerrero state,
which it wrested from the PRI in 2005.
However the PRI is hoping that a win in Guerrero would give it
momentum as it seeks to regain the presidency, which it controlled for
71 years before losing it in 2000 to the National Action Party of
current President Felipe Calderon.
The Guerrero race has demonstrated the far-reaching influence of the
PRI, which ruled for decades as the single dominant party through
paternalism and strong-arm election tactics that many Mexicans
considered a quasi-dictatorship.
Even Aguirre comes from PRI roots; he recently split from that party
to run on the PRD ticket.
During the bitterly contested race, his campaign accused PRI activists
of badly beating one of his supporters, while the PRI claimed two of
its activists were the targets of political attacks.
The PRD demanded an investigation into Anorve's finances after the
newspaper Reforma published allegations from a protected witness who
said in court documents that the PRI candidate had received millions
in cash from drug gangs.
Anorve angrily denied those allegations. The federal Attorney
General's Office dismissed the significance of the documents, saying
in a statement that secret witness testimony has no value unless
backed by concrete evidence. The statement stressed that there is no
criminal investigation against Anorve.
The tough campaign turned off some voters.
"One of the most damaging elements in this election were the rumors of
drug trafficking financing one of the campaigns," said Manuel
Rodriguez Leyva, a 36-year-old civil engineer who nevertheless voted
for Aguirre.
Others were merely hoping for a clear winner to avoid postelection strife.
"This vote must have an overwhelming result for the winner, so that
there are no possible conflicts," said Arturo Delgado, a 46-year-old
lawyer.
George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William and Mary in
Williamsburg, Virginia, predicted that if Aguirre wins, he would still
back Mexico state Gov. Enrique Pena Nieto, a favorite for the PRI
presidential nomination next year.
"In his race to succeed (President Felipe) Calderon, Pena Nieto faces
a win-win situation in Guerrero," Grayson wrote in an analysis.
Meanwhile, the Guerrero election has been another demonstration of the
PAN's failure to secure political dominance despite controlling the
presidency since Vicente Fox's 2000 victory.
The government of Calderon, elected in 2006, is grappling with
widespread frustration with Mexico's soaring drug-gang violence and an
economy just starting to recovering from a severe recession.
Trailing in the polls, PAN candidate Marcos Parra dropped out of the
Guerrero race at the last minute and threw his support behind Aguirre.
Such uncomfortable alliances between the conservative PAN and the
leftist PRD helped defeat the PRI in three gubernatorial races last
year.
Guerrero, a state of 3.3 million people, has been a hot spot of the
bloodletting that has marred Calderon's presidency.
Earlier this month, the bodies of 15 men, all but one of them
headless, were found on a street outside a shopping center in
Acapulco, a coveted drug trafficking zone and the site of turf battles
between the cartels.
There were 1,137 drug-related homicides in Guerrero in 2010,
surpassing the 879 in 2009.
