BORDER POLITICS

The Road to Chihuahua City
Hopefuls start the campaign for governor

by Michael S. Clifford, Managing Editor
based on a story by Everardo Monroy Caracas in El Diario


Chihuahuans will vote in a new governor July 5, and the state's political parties finalized their candidates for the state's highest office during March.

One doctor in biology, two public accountants, a lawyer and a psychologist officially declared their candidacies before the state electoral institute. The state electoral law requires candidates for governor to register their first and last names, age, place and date of birth, occupation, home and time of residence there, voting credentials and the post for which they are running, by March 15.

The candidates took different routes to the nominations of their parties. The National Action Party (PAN), which now holds the governorship, and the nationally ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) chose their candidates by the participation of more voters than the other parties.

One of the public accountants, Ramón Galindo Noriega won the nomination of the PAN in an open convention attended by more than 8,000 party members.

Galindo Noriega made his last report as mayor of Juárez on Oct. 4, 1997, and a month later he requested a license to contend with the other candidates for the gubernatorial nomination of his party.

Ex-director of Economic Development Enrique Terrazas Torres, ex-secretary general of the Government Eduardo Romero Ramos and former coordinator of Planning and Evaluation Elías Saad Ayub, who had all worked with incumbent Gov. Francisco Barrio Terrazas, were the other candidates.

Despite an intense campaign in the 67 municipalities of the state, Galindo Noriega came into the party convention February 8 with little support from politicos. They favored Romero Ramos as the stronger candidate.

Saad Ayub was eliminated in the first round of voting, and Terrazas Torres disqualified himself, leaving Galindo Noriega and Romero Ramos. Terrazas Torres threw his support behind Galindo Noriega in the second round. In the end, Galindo Noriega took 55.15 percent of the vote to 44.85 to Romero Ramos.

The other public accountant won the nomination of his party in an unprecedented election open not only to members of the PRI, but sympathizers as well. More than 230,000 voters took part in the PRI nominating election, on March 8, in which Patricio Martínez Garcia took the nomination with 126, 565 votes.

He defeated ex-mayor of Juárez Mario de la Torre Hernández and former senator and state leader of the PRI Artemio Iglesias Miramontes after a hard-fought campaign in which the candidates were unofficially estimated to have spent more than three million pesos.

Followers of Iglesias Miramontes linked Martínez Garcia with current Panista Gov. Barrio Terrazas, leading the governor's office to issue a statement repeating its support for Galindo Noriega.

Despite a nominating convention with 300 delegates, the party generally regarded as the third most powerful in the state, the left-of-center PRD, ultimately designated its candidate through a meeting of 60 state advisors. Of that number, 34 took the recommendation by the party's National Executive Committee of biologist María Esther Orozco, while 26 voted for ex-federal representative Victor Quintana Silveyra.

Orozco won the Louis Pasteur prize from UNESCO in France last November for her work with amoebas.

Leaders of the Workers' Party (PT) and Committee for Popular Defense (CDP) chose Priista lawyer Angel José Gurrea Luna as their joint candidacy, while the Mexican Green Party (PVEM) chose psychologist Gerardo Arturo Limón Domínguez.