PAN WINS "BATTLE FOR JUAREZ"

by Jeff Barnet, FNS Editor

Gustavo Elizondo was confident he had won the election for municipal president of Ciudad Juarez from the earliest returns. In fact, he declared himself to be "the virtual winner" on July 6.

However, the National Action Party (PAN) candidate had wait three more days until his opponent, José Eleno Villalva of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), conceded defeat after a Municipal Electoral Assembly (AME) recount showed that he had lost the race to Elizondo by one percentage point.

Official results indicated that Elizondo of the PAN took 44.6% of the vote to Eleno's 43.6%. Out of 335,858 votes cast, Elizondo emerged the victor by 3,473 votes.

Early returns and later returns with up to 79.2 percent of the vote counted showed Elizondo with a three-point lead, which he called "an irreversible difference." Neverthless, rival Eleno and leader of the National PRI Committee in Juárez Eduardo Bernal were not convinced, and would not concede defeat.

Furthermore, the PRI charged that the election itself was tainted. On July 6, Bernal stated, "We are going to oppose serious irregularities in several precincts where there was theft of ballot boxes, police intervention, PRI representatives run off, and PAN propaganda, the Galindo truck crossing the city."

According to Mexican electoral law, no party is allowed to campaign on election day.

Eleno also alleged that the PAN had brought in 20 Catholic priests from the state of Baja California in an effort to win votes. "It's unspeakable what underhanded tactics they [the PAN] will stoop to," he told the El Paso Times.

Bernal added, "Because of all the existing anomalies, we can't accept it [the mayoral electoral result]." Eleno enlisted the help of 21 lawyers to defend his "vote by vote" recount.

El Diario called the recount fight "The Battle For Juárez."

Eleno rejected to negotiate with PAN officials, saying, "The era of Carlos Salinas ended when he left this country and I will not negotiate with Francisco Barrio."

PRI candidates, especially gubernatorial candidate Patricio Martínez, had characterized Barrio as the new Salinas throughout the campaign and alleged that Barrio had helped his brother Federico to earn sizeable amounts of money.

When the July 9 recount was made official, PAN representative to the AME, Cruz Pérez Cuéllar, was quick to challenge the PRI. "We have the clear political and judicial advantage. . . We are prepared to defend this victory," he said. On July 8, Pérez said he would fight against "PRI chicanery."

PRI officials also wondered aloud at the unusually high number of votes for the left-of-center Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD). PRD candidate Nore Elena Yu Hernández won 9.2 percent of the vote, almost twice the percentage she had been earning in polls. She also rejected the PRI's charges of electoral irregularities, saying "everyone in the country is abandoning the tricolor party [a nickname for the PRI]."

Eleno--who had emerged as the PRI nominee after a bungled primary process in which he was declared the victor over Héctor Gonzalez Mocken by three votes--finally conceded on July 9, saying, "We recognize the decision of the electorate, who are principled people, honorable people....the citizens of this city had the opportunity to vote in a clean, transparent election."

In what El Diario described as "an emotional speech," the defeated PRIista continued, "We assume responsibility and we are not going to impugn a single act, because, being a progressive party, we do not wish to disturb the process...We ran a close race, but the victor won by a difference of less than a percentage point."

However, the same day that Eleno admitted defeat, PRI leader Bernal began alleging that Gonzalez Mocken had committed "betrayal" against the PRI by failing to support Eleno. Later in the month, Gonzalez Mocken was accused of asking his loyal supporters to vote for PRD candidate Yu--a charge which wasa later dropped by party officials.

Elizondo, an engineer, declared himself to be mayor-elect on July 9, succeeding fellow PANista Ramón Galindo in the municipal presidency. (Interim mayor Enrique Flores Almeida took over the post when Galindo announced he would seek the PAN nomination for candidate for governor of Chihuahua.) Elizondo became the third counsecutive PANista to win the mayorship of Juárez. The party has held the municipal presidency since 1992.

In his first major policy move, Elizondo announced July 13 that he would be increasing the city's public security budget, fulfilling one of his campaign promises. Currently, he said, the city was spending 24 to 26 percent of its budget on security. "We are contemplating the spending of a thousand million pesos in 1999, and we are designating 33 percent of that to the public security," Elizondo said.

The mayor-elect also indicated that he understood the importance of public works projects, and would continue to apply 26 percent of the budget toward the development of the city.

The continued hold on the mayorship of the opposition party PAN frustrated PRI hopes for a complete re-takeover of the state and its major cities. The PRI easily captured the municipal presidency of Ciudad Chihuahua, the state capitol, by a vote of 110,913 to 97,157 over the PAN. The PRI also captured the state's third-largest city, Delicias.

Overall, the PRI took 45 of the state's 67 municipalities, compared to 19 for the PAN and two for the PRD. However, these results represented a gain for the PAN of seven municipalities, from 12 to 19, from 1995.

A July 6 editorial in El Diario congratulated Juárez voters for the "wisdom that without a doubt exceeds the perceptions of our leaders" that led them to "carefully distribute the balance of power in the state."

Municipal President of Ciudad Juárez
(Results verified by the Municipal Electoral Assembly, July 9)

Gustavo Elizondo, PAN..............149,759........44.6%.
José Eleno, PRI..........................146,286........43.6%
Nora Elena Yu, PRD....................30,989..........9.2%
Hugo Caesar Morales, PVEM..... ..4,731..........1.4%
Jesus Eduardo Marsichal, PT..........4,093..........1.2%

Total Official Votes.....................335,858
Annulled Votes...............................7,281

Sources: El Diario, El Norte de la Ciudad Juárez