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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| PRI Retains Governorships in Mexico state, Coahuila -- UPDATED II |
| 2011-07-04 |
| For a map, click here This story will be updated throughout the day, as polling results are updated. Official results will not be released until Wednesday. Updated at 0618 hrs with totals for state chamber of deputies for Nayarit and Coahuila, and the governor's race for Nayarit and final totals for Coahuila.UPDATE II; Updatingwith revised percentages, via El Diario de Coahuila By Chris Covert The Mexican Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) has retained the governorships in three state elections Sunday, including the pivotal Mexico state by wide margins over its rivals Sunday as voter participation averaged well above 60 percent, according to Mexican press accounts and official government websites. Eruviel Avila Villegas and his PRI/Partido Verde Ecologista de Mexico (PVEM)/PANAL coalition in Mexico defeated four other opposition parties gaining a total of 62.4 percent of the vote defeating the leftist Partido Revolucion Democratica (PRD)/Partido Trabajo (PT)/Convergencia coalition headed by Alejandro Encinas with its 21.2 percent and Partido Accion Nacional's Luis Felipe Bravo Mena with 12.5 percent. Avila Villegas' polling never dipped below 60 percent in polls throughout the three month long campaign as the PRD coalition buffeted by a call by one of its founders to go it alone in this election struggled to stay ahead of PAN. Similarly in Coahuila, PRI's Ruben Ignacio Moreira Valdez won 57.13 percent of the votes besting the PAN/Unidad Democrätica de Coahuila candidate Guillermo Anaya Llamas who ended up with 35.55 percent of the vote. The other two mainstream leftist political parties, PT and PRD, together gained less than three percent of the vote. The PRI win in Coahuila is especially meaningful because Moreira Valdez's brother, Humberto, recently took the reins of the PRI last spring, taking over from Beatriz Parades Rangel. Parades Rangel, who finished her term as leader of the PRI following a tremendous year in 2010 that saw the PRI retain or win outright 11 of 14 governorships last July, has been mentioned in Spanish language reports last spring as a possible candidate for president of the republic under the PRI banner. Humberto resigned his post as governor of Coahuila to become Parades Rangel's replacement. These elections are Humberto's first as head of the PRI. In Nayarit, Roberto Sandoval Castañeda of PRI/PVEM coalition won 49.1 percent of the vote leading PAN's Martha Elena GarcÃÂa Gómez who won 35.5 percent and PRD's Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo with 11.42 percent. In Hidalgo municipal elections PRI was leading or took 47 municipalities, PRD and PT combined lead or took eight, PAN seven, PT or PT coalitions with five, and PRD/PAN coalition with eight percent. In Coahuila, PRI and PRI coalitions won almost 58 percent of the vote for state deputies leading the PAN Libre y Seguero coalition's 33.8 percent. In Nayarit, PRI won the state chamber of deputies with 41.7 percent of the vote, while PAN won 32 percent. Avila Villegas' big win in Mexico state is a crushing blow for its opposition, but the thread that brought it about was a tantrum by one of the founders of the PRD. Manuel Andres Lopez Obrador spent weeks mugging for the press and haranguing his party and PAN that a coalition in Mexico state between PAN and PRD was not going to happen. PRI is a political party with strong constituencies unlike the other two major parties. Leaders in PRI spent generations building bases with large swaths of Mexican society, particularly campesinos, workers, unionists and the middle class to win elections repeatedly and to rule Mexico for 70 years. The other parties are intellectual parties who use coalitions of sap the electoral strength of PRI. It was how PAN candidate, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, won narrowly in 2006. Mexico state was PRI's to lose. Its last governor, Enrique Pena Nieto is considered PRI's leading candidate for the 2012 presidential election. The PRI win as crushing as it was, was likely not in doubt from the start. PRI has ruled Mexico state since the 1930s, and Avila Villegas poll numbers never went below 50 precent, starting with a 70 percent advantage at the start of the campaign. Despite the ooing and awing from the English language press about the telegenic Pena Nieto with his soap opera actress wife, Angelica Rivera, and his own political skills, he is a flawed candidate, and his candidacy is all but ensured. The elections in Mexico state are symbolic of a return of the PRI to Los Pinos, but is by no means an auger for the future. One potential candidate for PAN, Josefina Mota Vazquez, a Mexico City economist and a former federal deputy is potentially a dark horse for PAN. Mota Vazquez said Sunday that the elections in Mexico state do not necessarily means PAN is done in Mexican national politics. |
| Posted by:badanov |
