Pakistanis ruined by floods brace for more hardship

Reuters, RAMLI KHOSO, Pakistan: Six months after Pakistan's epic
floods demolished this farming village in the southern province of
Sindh, its residents still live in limbo on a roadside.

Let down by their unpopular government, and too poor to rebuild their
homes, villagers living in tents can only pray the next monsoon season
in July won't bring more upheaval.

"We are hardly getting any help," said Alimi Khoso, pointing to a
dirty plaster around her two-month-old granddaughter's leg, broken in
an accident in a tent camp.

"Where will we go if there are more floods. We don't even have enough
money to run away."

Monsoon floods began roaring through Pakistan in late July last year,
leaving about 11 million people homeless.

The government was slow to respond while the military, seen as a far
more efficient institution, took the lead in relief operations.
Pakistani leaders could face fresh criticism if dire conditions in
flood-affected areas worsen.

Many communities in Sindh are still surrounded by floodwaters and
hundreds of thousands of people still live in temporary shelters, even
though more than $1 billion in flood aid has been delivered to
Pakistan, a strategic U.S. ally.

In Ramli Khosa, about 1,5OO people reside in rows of bare, white tents
donated by Arab and Western aid groups.

They must travel about a kilometer to fetch water in tough conditions
felt in many flood-affected parts of Sindh province, which was hardest
hit by the disaster.

In interviews in several villages only a few people said they received
compensation from authorities -- 20,000 rupees ($233.9).

That doesn't go far. Prices remain unbearably high after floods
destroyed crops and cut food supplies.

Farmers say it could be years before they are able to plant again. To
survive, some toil as laborers, earning about a dollar a day.
Government help is unlikely to come soon.

Pakistan's government has been preoccupied by political crises and
already faces a host of other problems, from power cuts to a stubborn
Taliban insurgency.

Even if it decides to step up efforts to help millions of flood
victims who sank deeper into poverty after the catastrophe, generating
enough funds will be difficult.

Without implementing painful economic reforms, the government will
keep struggling to secure the sixth tranche of an $11 billion IMF loan
propping up the economy.

"The flood issue adds to the government's long list of woes. The state
is already stretched in many directions," said Kamran Bokhari, South
Asia director at STRATFOR global intelligence.

People like Qurban Ali have been largely forgotten both at home and abroad.

Ali stood over some bricks -- what's left of his flattened house --
glued together with a mixture of sand and cement to form a small
frame, a tiny step toward recovery.

"How can I plan to rebuild it without any help from the government,'
he asked, as mangy dogs lingered nearby.

A group of angry men held up a document which promised a local
official would deliver six sacks of staple foods. He delivered only
three and demanded a bribe, they alleged.

Ruling Pakistan People's Party spokeswoman Fauzia Wahab said the
government was doing its best to help flood victims.

"We are providing the farmers free-of-cost fertilizer and seeds. But
as you know we still have a problem with cash," she told Reuters.

MEDICINE IS TOO EXPENSIVE

Resentment is also growing elsewhere in Sindh, home province of
President Asif Ali Zardari.

In Murad Chandio village, Pakistan Red Crescent volunteers unload
sacks of flour from a truck as dozens of people who returned only a
month ago line up for help. It may temporarily ease suffering. People
there want long-term stability, and that can only come from the
government.

Families live beside wreckage, protected only by blankets hanging
above them. It's easy to see why many are terrified at the thought of
new raging waters.

"People's resilience has been really affected. Even any low level
flooding in future is going to be a problem. They may not be able to
cope," said Penny Sims, a Red Cross spokeswoman.

The ripple affects of the floods are felt most acutely in the
downtrodden parts of Sindh.

Economic devastation has left families unable to care for their
neediest loved ones. Ten-year-old Gulbahar Hidayatullah's bone
disease, rickets, is inflicting even more pain because relatives can't
afford to buy her enough medicine to treat it.

While some youngsters pass time playing beside the destruction left by
the floods, a relative has to hold her up.

Other children have been set back in different ways. In Ramli Khoso,
an 85-year-old toothless woman named Allahrakhi walked barefoot with a
tree branch she uses as a cane.

She barely had the energy to express her biggest worry -- her grandson
may be deprived of an education because floods have kept him out of
the classroom.

"I want him to have money so he can go to school, so he can get
married one day," she said, trembling. Others worry about just getting
their children through the next few weeks or months.

In Adam Khan village, located beside a canal with stinking, stagnant
water left by the floods, a woman lies in a tent. She gave birth there
a day earlier without medical attention because the cost of transport
to a clinic was too steep.

The infant yawns in the heat, flies swirling over her sweaty face.

Mexico's left wins western state in setback for PRI

Reuters, ACAPULCO, Mexico: Mexico's left appeared to hold onto a
governorship in the country's western hinterland on Sunday in a sign
the main opposition party still needs to show voters it has modernized
to win the presidency in 2012.

In the shadow of harrowing drug violence, voters in Guerrero gave the
leftist Party of Democratic Revolution, or PRD, victory over the
powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, one of six state
elections ahead of next year's presidential race.

Both parties claimed victory on Sunday night and accused the other of
trying to rig the vote. But with 45 percent of the vote counted, the
PRD's candidate Angel Aguirre won 57 percent of the ballot, Guerrero
State Electoral Institute said on its website. That compared with 42
percent for the PRI's candidate Manuel Anorve. President Felipe
Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN, which failed to garner
support for its candidate and threw its backing behind the PRD, won
the remainder.

"We're tired of the PRI's corruption and the power the party holds
over the country's unions," said a waitress in Acapulco, Guerrero's
main city, who declined to give her name.

The PRI was kicked out by voters in 2000, putting an end to its
71-year rule in the oil exporting nation and top U.S. trade partner.
But the party is making a comeback, capitalizing on a divided left and
deep disappointment at a decade under the

PAN.

The center-left PRI won a majority in Congress in 2009 and has
maintained a strong presence at the state level, holding more than
half of Mexico's governorships.

The loss in Guerrero is not seen as a major setback, but the party is
looking for momentum to reach the presidency and it signals voters are
wary of the party's autocratic past, when party cronies ran the
country based on a system of patronage.

"LAB TEST"

The PRI still controls large blocs of voters from unions and farmer
groups and the Guerrero vote was marred by accusations that Anorve was
on the payroll of drug gangs, which he strongly denied.

"This vote is a first lab test for the election in the State of
Mexico," analyst Raymundo Riva Palacio told local radio, referring to
the populous state on the edge of Mexico City that could sway the
balance of power in Mexico.

Voters in Guerrero, one of Mexico's poorest states a few hours drive
from the Mexican capital, were spared the kind of cartel attacks that
have terrorized the region over the past few years, although rumors of
violence dissuaded some.

Almost 3,000 people have died in drug war violence in Guerrero over
the past four years as gangs fight over Acapulco's port, its links to
Mexico City and its marijuana and opium plantations hidden in lush
valleys.

Calderon is under pressure to contain surging drug violence across the
country after launching his army-backed crackdown in December 2006.
More than 34,000 people have died in drug killings since then, and
extortion, kidnapping and crime are rampant, worrying business
leaders.

South Korea rejects North's call for earlier military talks

Reuters, SEOUL: South Korea on Monday rejected a push by the North to
bring forward military talks by 10 days, saying it was not enough time
to prepare for their first dialogue since the North's deadly attack
against a border island last year.

Pyongyang sent a message to the South's defense ministry at the
weekend calling for the preliminary talks, which Seoul has suggested
take place at the Panmunjom truce village on February 11, to start on
Tuesday.

It was not immediately clear why the North wanted an earlier date.

Talks at the military and political level between the rival Koreas are
routinely set after proposals and counterproposals as the two sides
vie for higher bargaining positions and rarely break down over
scheduling conflicts.

Such trouble is not anticipated this time either, a defense ministry
official said.

North Korea has agreed to discuss the shelling of the South Korean
island of Yeonpyeong in November and the sinking of a South Korean
navy ship in March that Seoul blames on Pyongyang.

Pyongyang says the South provoked the island attack by test-firing
shells into its waters, and says it had nothing to do with the sinking
of Cheonan warship.

The working-level preliminary talks are meant to set the agenda for a
more senior meeting, possibly at the ministerial level.

Tensions have risen on the divided peninsula over the past 12 months,
with the two attacks on the South as well as the North's revelations
of big advances in its nuclear program.

But the main allies of the two Koreas -- the United States and China
-- have nudged the neighbors back to the negotiating table to defuse
tensions in a region which is responsible for one-sixth of the world's
economy.

South Korea wants to take a two-track approach to dialogue with the
North -- one to discuss the two attacks, and the other to see how to
move forward on the stalled six-party aid-for-disarmament talks.

Pyongyang has yet to respond to the South's proposal for bilateral
nuclear talks.

The North also said it wants to return to six-party talks with
regional powers aimed at compensating it in return for a pledge to end
its nuclear ambitions in a move analysts see as an attempt to secure
aid to help its struggling economy.

Egypt protesters camp out, Mubarak turns to army

Reuters, CAIRO: Egyptian protesters were camped out in central Cairo
Monday and vowed to stay until they had toppled President Hosni
Mubarak, whose fate appeared to hang on the military as pressure
mounted from the street and abroad.

"The army has to choose between Egypt and Mubarak," read one banner in
Cairo's Tahrir Square, where demonstrators shared food with soldiers
sent to restore order after violent protests shook Mubarak's 30-year
rule to its core.

Six days of unrest has killed more than 100 people but the two sides
have reached a stalemate. Protesters refuse to go, while the army is
not moving them. The longer protesters stay unchallenged, the more
untenable Mubarak's position seems.

Protesters in Tahrir Square -- epicenter of the earthquake that has
sent shudders through the Middle East and among global investors --
have dismissed Mubarak's appointment of military men as his vice
president and prime minister.

His promises of economic reform to address public anger at rising
prices, unemployment and huge gap between rich and poor have failed to
halt their broader calls for a political sweep out of Mubarak and his
associates.

Protesters have called for a general strike Monday and what they bill
as a "protest of the millions" march Tuesday, to press their demands
for democracy which could spell the end for the military establishment
which has run post-colonial Egypt since the 1950s.

The United States, an ally which has poured billions of dollars of aid
into Egypt since Mubarak came to power, stopped just short of saying
openly that it wanted him out. Officials including President Barack
Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke about "an orderly
transition."

A senior U.S. administration official, who declined to be identified,
said the feeling among Obama's national security aides was that
Mubarak's time had passed, but it was up to Egyptians to determine
what happens next.

Mubarak, a former air force chief, has turned to his military
commanders, meeting them Sunday. They seem to hold his future in their
hands. Egypt's defense minister spoke by phone to U.S. Defense
Secretary Robert Gates Sunday.

Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and
highest-ranking U.S. military officer, praised the "professionalism"
of Egypt's armed forces as its troops refrained from a crackdown on
protesters. Egypt receives about $1.3 billion a year in U.S. military
aid.

INVESTORS NERVOUS

The crisis in Egypt follows a revolt that toppled the leader of
Tunisia two weeks ago, and a wave of popular anger sweeping other
countries in North Africa and the Middle East.

Financial markets around the globe opened Monday bracing for the
impact of the weekend's events in Egypt. Brent oil hit a 28-month
high, pennies below $100 a barrel. The dollar rose in Asian trade as
investors sought a safe haven.

Share prices fell in Asia, and U.S. S&P futures were lower Monday
after Wall Street closed down 1.8 percent Friday, suggesting a global
pullback from risk assets like equities had room to run.

"The greater fear is that the turmoil could spread to other Middle
East countries, including even Saudi Arabia. If that happens, then all
bets for oil prices are off," ANZ Bank economist Sharon Zollner said
in a note to clients.

Egypt's own financial markets will be closed for a second working day
in a row Monday and the turmoil could quickly run down its substantial
reserves if it continues.

"Mubarak's predictability has long been counted on by the West, and
with that on the verge of disappearing, investors and politicians
around the region are nervous," said Akram Annous, MENA strategist at
Al Mal Capital.

An Egyptian opposition coalition that includes the mass Islamist
movement the Muslim Brotherhood has turned to Mohamed ElBaradei,
former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, to form a national unity
government and make contact with the military.

ElBaradei has urged Obama to call time on Mubarak.

"It is better for President Obama not to appear that he is the last
one to say to President Mubarak, 'It's time for you to go," he told
CNN.

ElBaradei disappointed the opposition by spending much of his time
abroad since he first launched a campaign calling for political reform
in Egypt last year, but lends the weight of his international
reputation to a movement that lacks a leader.

'NO MORE PHARAOHS'

"I think he is a good guy. He wasn't prepared for what happened. All
we care about is that we don't get another pharaoh," said Rami Nabil,
39, a businessman camped in Tahrir.

"We need a system of government that is democratic and long term, not
more pharaohs."

A short distance from the protests, shooting echoed over Cairo.
Impromptu neighborhood watch groups set up checkpoints across the city
center, checking anyone passing by.

Some of the self-appointed guards said shooting in one area near
Cairo's supreme court was the result of looters in a chemical company
building.

Security, which disintegrated Saturday and Sunday when police withdrew
from the streets, has been slowly restored. Extra troops sent into
cities helped calm panicked residents and the official news agency
said police patrols had resumed.

While the army has sought to stop lawlessness, there is no sign it is
willing to drive the protesters off the street.

"In the next few days security and stability will return," said
Brigadier Atef Said in Suez, east of Cairo and the scene of some of
the worst of the violence between police and protesters.

"We will allow protests in the coming days. Everyone has the right to
voice their opinion. We're listening and trying to help and satisfy
all parties. We're not here to stop anyone. These are our people," he
said.

(Additional reporting by Dina Zayed, Marwa Awad, Shaimaa Fayed,
Sherine El Madany, Yasmine Saleh, Alison Williams and Samia Nakhoul in
Cairo, Alexander Dziadosz in Suez, Matt Spetalnick and Phil Stewart in
Washington and Peter Apps, Angus MacSwan and William Maclean in
London; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Peter Graff)

Clinton meets with Haiti presidential candidates

AP, PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: The United States has no plans to halt aid
to earthquake-ravaged Haiti in spite of a crisis over who will be the
nation's next leader but does insist that the president's chosen
successor be dropped from the race, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton said Sunday.

Clinton arrived Sunday in the impoverished Caribbean nation for a
brief visit. She met with President Rene Preval and earlier met with
each of the three candidates jockeying to replace him.

Only two candidates can go on to the delayed second round, now
scheduled for March 20. The U.S. is backing an Organization of
American States recommendation that the candidate from Preval's party,
government construction official Jude Celestin, should be left out in
favor of populist rival Michel Martelly.

The top U.S. official at the United Nations, Susan Rice, said recently
that "sustained support" from the United States required the OAS
recommendations be implemented. Many Haitian officials, including
leaders of Preval's Unity party and Martelly, interpreted that to mean
the U.S. was threatening an embargo and cutting off aid.

Clinton flatly rebuffed that suggestion. "We're not talking about any
of that," she said Sunday.

"We have a deep commitment to the Haitian people," she told reporters.
"That goes to humanitarian aid, that goes to governance and democracy
programs, that will be going to a cholera treatment center."

Asked if there were any set of circumstances that would prompt
Washington to cut off aid, Clinton said, "At this point, no."

Still, she insisted that the United States would press the
recommendations by international monitors after a disorganized,
fraud-ridden first-round presidential vote in November. They
determined that Preval's preferred successor, Celestin, finished last
and should drop out. Celestin has yet to do so.

"We're focused on helping the Haitian people," Clinton said ahead of
the meetings. "One of the ways we want to help them is by making sure
that their political choices are respected."

Haiti is in a deepening and potentially destabilizing political
crisis. The announcement of preliminary results from the disputed
first round led to rioting in December. Final results are expected to
be announced Wednesday.

Just five days after, on Feb. 7, comes the constitutional end of
Preval's five-year term.

A law passed by an expiring Senate last May would allow him to remain
in power for an extra three months, but it is not clear if his
government would continue to be recognized by donor countries. But
Preval has said he does not want to hand power to an interim
government.

"That's one of the problems we have to talk about," Clinton said.
"There are issues of a continuing government, how that can be
structured. And that's what I'm going to be discussing."

Leaders of Preval's party said last week that they would agree with
Celestin stepping down, but the candidate has not commented since and
his lawyers continue to plead his case to the electoral council. It is
not clear what Preval himself thinks.

Sunday afternoon, each of the bickering presidential candidates
arrived by SUV at the black metal gates of the U.S. ambassador's
sprawling residence for individual meetings with Clinton.

Martelly came and went first. Mirlande Manigat, the former first lady
who led the polling, met with Clinton second. Celestin's meeting came
last.

Only Manigat stopped to talk to a small gaggle of mostly foreign
reporters waiting at the gate.

"You don't get the sense that the United States wants the election to
be canceled but you can feel that they would like there to be
stability," the law professor said. "(Clinton) asked me what
conditions I could find to make these elections more acceptable. I
said a climate of calm ... (and) that they would make some changes in
the electoral council."

Acknowledging the tight time frame for Haiti, Clinton said she wanted
to hear ideas on how Haiti's transition should be handled but then
make her own assessment on the best way forward.

The political crisis comes as the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation
tries to restart its economy after decades of stifling poverty and
unemployment, and the massive loss of life and infrastructure in last
year's earthquake.

Hundreds of thousands of people remain in homeless camps and major
rebuilding has not started. Underlying issues such as land-tenure
reform and the development and reconstruction of government
institutions have barely been addressed. Massive piles of rubble and
collapsed buildings remain throughout the capital.

Meanwhile, a cholera epidemic that started outside the quake zone and
has killed more than 4,000 people continues to rage. Clinton visited a
tented treatment center Sunday.

She said reconstruction has been steady "but not adequate to the task
that we are confronting."

"The problems are significant," Clinton told the pool of reporters
traveling with her. "Like what do you do with all the rubble? It's a
really big problem."

AP Interview: Islamist leader returns to Tunisia

AP, TUNIS, Tunisia: The leader of a long-outlawed Tunisian Islamist
party returned home Sunday after two decades in exile, telling The
Associated Press in his first interview on arrival that his views are
moderate and that his Westward-looking country has nothing to fear.

Rachid Ghanouchi and about 70 other exiled members of Ennahdha, or
Renaissance, flew home from Britain two weeks after autocratic
President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was forced from power by violent
protests. At the airport, thousands of people welcomed him, cheering,
shouting "God is great!" and drowning out his attempt to address the
crowd with a megaphone.

Ghanouchi rejected any comparison to more radical figures, including
the hardline father of the Iranian Revolution.

"Some Western media portray me like (Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini, but
that's not me," Rachid Ghanouchi told the AP.

During 23 years in power, Tunisia's ousted president cracked down on
opponents, including proponents of political Islam, jailing them and
sending many into exile. As Tunisians protests over corruption and
repression, Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on Jan. 14.

With Ben Ali gone, Ennahdha has moved quickly to carve out a place in
the political scene, taking part in demonstrations and meeting with
the prime minister.

Some Tunisians fear that a revival of Islam could hurt their hard-won
gains and quality of life, or inspire an extremist movement like the
al-Qaida-linked network that has waged an insurgency in neighboring
Algeria.

But, while Ennahdha was branded an Islamic terrorist group by Ben Ali,
it is considered moderate by scholars. Experts say Ben Ali used a fear
of Islamists to seduce Western allies keen for a bulwark against
terrorism in a volatile region, and win their blessing despite
widespread repression.

Though the ban on Ghanouchi's party hasn't officially been lifted, the
new interim government has been more tolerant of it.

Ghanouchi said he wants his party to help Tunisia carry out democratic
reforms, though he is not interested in standing in elections expected
in upcoming months.

"I am not going to run for president of Tunisia, nor as a minister nor
as a parliamentarian," he said in an interview at his brother's home,
where family members celebrated with a festive meal of couscous.
Another long-exiled opponent — Moncef Marzouki, a secular leftist and
human rights activist — was there to welcome him.

Ghanouchi, 69, left the country as Ben Ali came to power in 1987. In
1991, he was convicted in absentia to life in prison, as were most of
the party's leaders. Ben Ali banned the party, accusing it of
conspiring to kill him and establish a Muslim fundamentalist state.
Ennahdha denied those accusations.

The new activism by Islamists — who want a role for Islam in their
country's politics — is feeding jitters that extremism may be on the
rise in Tunisia, long a nation proud of its modern identity: Women
enjoy widespread freedoms, Muslim headscarves are banned in public
buildings and abortions, a deep taboo in most Muslim societies, are
legal.

Ghanouchi said he seeks to reinforce women's rights set out by
Tunisia's Westward-looking modern-day founder, Habib Bourguiba. In
1956, Tunisia abolished polygamy and gave women the right to divorce
their husbands. Ghanouchi said his party still supports that historic
turning point, along with freedom of religion.

"So why are (certain) women afraid of me?" Ghanouchi said. In a
reference to Muslim headscarves, he also asked: "Why don't 'liberated'
women defend the right of other women to wear what they want?"

Asked about his view on abortion, he dodged the question, saying the
issue was complicated.

Ghanouchi compared his politics to those of Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Despite Erdogan's Islamist roots, he has been
widely viewed as a pragmatist largely loyal to the legacy of Turkey's
founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who sought to create a secular,
modern state.

"Why do people want to compare me to (Osama) Bin Laden or Khomeini,
when I am closer to Erdogan?" Ghanouchi said.

The unrest that toppled Ben Ali in Tunisia has spread to Egypt, where
protesters are calling for the departure of President Hosni Mubarak.

In Tunisia, meanwhile, the interim government has been trying to
stabilize the country after weeks of unrest — fueled by widespread
corruption and repression — that led to Ben Ali's flight.

Tunisia has issued an international arrest warrant for Ben Ali,
accusing him of taking money out of the country illegally.

Swiss prosecutors said Sunday they have launched a money laundering
investigation into accounts belonging to Ben Ali and his family. The
Federal Prosecutors Office said the accounts blocked two weeks ago
contain tens of millions of Swiss francs. Prosecutors in Paris are
also probing the family's assets in France.

SKorea: NKorea wants defense talks held earlier

AP, SEOUL, South Korea: South Korea says the North has pushed for rare
defense talks between the rivals to be held sooner than the South
proposes.

South Korea agreed last week to talks on easing hostility on the
Korean peninsula.

The Defense Ministry said in a statement Monday that North Korea wants
a preliminary meeting on Tuesday to prepare for higher-level defense
talks.

But the ministry repeated that the South wanted the preliminary talks
to take place Feb. 11.

The talks are aimed at easing tensions after North Korea's artillery
bombardment of a South Korean island in November and the sinking of
warship last March.

Candidates predict victory in Mexico gov's race

AP, ACAPULCO, Mexico: Both candidates for governor of the
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.