Ruling party loses Mexico City for first time
July 6, 1997
Web posted at: 11:10 p.m. EDT (2310 GMT)In this story:
MEXICO CITY (CNN) -- As night fell at the end of midterm elections Sunday, the Aztec sun of the Democratic Revolutionary Party's (PRD) banner was rising on what may be a new era for Mexican politics. Exit polling showed the left-center PRD candidate winning the race for mayor of Mexico City, handing the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) the biggest defeat in its 68-year history.
Exit polling done by the National Chamber of the Radio and Television Industry, which does polling for the Mexican media, showed PRD candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas winning with 46 percent of the vote. The PRI candidate, Alfredo del Mazo, had 23 percent in the poll, and Carlos Castillo, of the National Action Party (PAN), 19 percent.
The election was the first ever for mayor of Mexico City. For seven decades the mayor was handpicked by the president, a member of PRI, which has ruled Mexico with nearly absolute power since 1929.
Cardenas, 63, is the son of the PRI president who nationalized Mexico's oil industry in 1938. He has said he will concentrate on crime and corruption, but he also has said government must take strong steps to improve the economy and that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) should be "reviewed."
Cardenas lost the race for president in 1988 and 1994. Many Mexicans say he would have won in his first attempt had PRI not used ballot fraud to ensure victory. Cardenas is considered a likely candidate for president in 2000.
What was at stake
The ruling party stood to lose much more than control of Mexico City. All 500 seats of the lower house of Congress (the Chamber of Deputies), a quarter of the Senate and six governorships were to be decided. Should PRI win less than 42 percent of the Chamber of Deputies it would lose its majority, and be forced to negotiate its policies with opposition parties for the first time. Mexico would have a true multiparty system.
Turnout was said to be high and voting appeared to go smoothly in most of the country, except in the southern state of Chiapas, where suspected supporters of the Zapatista rebels burned election materials at nine voting stations and ransacked two others to protest the vote.
An electoral watchdog told Reuters that PRI supporters at a polling site in a poor northern area of the capital were offering voters 100 pesos (about $13) for their vote. The PRI supporters scattered when the citizens' group arrived with a camera crew.
How change came about
It was the state of economy, and, ironically, the ruling party's election reforms, that set the stage for PRI's losses.
The peso crisis of 1994-1995 hit Mexican workers hard. About a million lost their jobs, wages fell and inflation soared. The economy has since rebounded but even President Zedillo has admitted the average Mexican had yet to feel the effect.
Mexicans also complain of widespread corruption of the government and Zedillo instituted a series of election reforms, promising the cleanest election in Mexican history. He gave opposition candidates better access to funding and television, and established the first election commission independent of the government.
The Federal Electoral Institute has spent about five billion pesos ($625 million) to guarantee a clean and fair election.
Despite his party's losses, Zedillo may well claim credit for creating a new political climate. "Democracy speaks for itself," he said after he cast his ballot. "It has its own language, which is very beautiful."
- Newsmaker Profile: Ernesto Zedillo - Newsmaker Profile
Special Section:
- Mexico Elections '97 in English
- Elecciones Mexicanas '97 En Español
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