by Dr. Jose Garcia, Professor of Government, New Mexico State University
While two Hispanic candidates were contending for the congressional seat vacated in El Paso by Ronald Coleman, in Cd. Juarez both the PAN and PRI parties continued jockeying for position in the early pre-gubernatorial season.
In El Paso, Democratic congressional candidate Silvestre Reyes stressed local issues in seeking to attract voters. He suggested he would be El Paso's chief lobbyist in Washington, stated he would encourage the creation of a downtown river walk like the one in San Antonio, as well as the creation of two new international bridges, and promised to seek funding for an El Paso-based water research institute. His Republican opponent, Rick Ledesma, on the other hand, stressed national issues that have regional impact, such as advocating vouchers to parents for education, less government in general, a flat tax, and privatization of inspections at the international bridges. He also advocated impeachment of U.S. Supreme Court justices. The two candidates squared off at a forum sponsored by the Leadership El Paso Alumni Association.
In Cd. Juarez, opposition party leaders for the local PRI, PRD, and PVEM parties criticized the trip mayor Ramon Galindo (PAN) took in early September to Puebla, to attend a meeting of PAN mayors organized by the national party. While pointing out that this was Galindo's 26th trip since he became mayor, PRI municipal president Hector Gonzales Mocken suggested citizens are growing "increasingly disillusioned" with the mayor's administration.
At a statewide level, state representative Yolanda Baeza Martinez complained that women are still not adequately represented in Mexican politics, pointing out that only one national senator, Martha Lara de Sarquis, representing Chihuahua, is female; no member of the house of representatives is female; and in the Chihuahua state legislature only three representatives (one Panista, two Priistas), are women. Another female political leader, Yolanda Villalobos, a Panista, has openly criticized her party for failing to publicly discuss internal party conflict. Villalobos has been outspoken in criticizing the removal of Hector Mejia as Cd. Juarez party leader for the PAN. She accused the whole Galindo family of complicity in the move, which she attributes to the fact that both Galindo and Mejia would like to be the PAN candidate for governor in the 1998 statewide elections. She was especially critical of the complicity in this move of state party leaders Javier Corral and Carlos Angulo Parra, who she claims "have forgotten party doctrine and are hurting the party," suggesting the move to oust Mejia was arbitrary and imposed from above, rather than coming from the party base.
For his part, Hector Mejia announced he might seek reelection as municipal party leader, a post from which he was fired, "should conditions for my candidacy be favorable." This, in turn, provoked a reply from party leader Jose Marquez, who said a future Mejia candidacy would "create internal problems" and would be seen as "motivated by revenge." Mejia was ousted after an accusation was made against one of his supporters, Elsa Almeida de Diaz, a city councilwoman, of misappropriation of funds. This, in turn, led to the dissolution of an important support agency in the PAN, a group called Political Support for Women. Mejia later asked the party to give Ms. Almeida a public apology for the "false accusation," when a party group exonerated her from the charge.
In combination with the resignation of Maria Gutierrez ( See FNS September, 1996), who accused Galindo of various misdeeds as mayor, most observers believed the internal factionalism within the PAN is related to the efforts of contenders for the governership (to be contested in 1998) to line up supporters. The collateral damage to the party image, however, seems potentially serious. For example, the state congress in Chihuahua is now actively investigating charges made against Galindo by Gutierrez, and their findings are certain to be made public; should they be negative, the damage might affect the party image among the voters.
Sources: El Norte, Diario de Juarez, El Paso Times