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In Mexican Election, Governing Party Is Poised for a Narrow Win In Mexican Election, Governing Party Is Poised for a Narrow Win
(about 2 hours later)
TOLUCA, Mexico — Alfredo del Mazo Maza, the candidate from Mexico’s governing party, appeared to be heading toward an extremely narrow victory late Sunday in the fiercely fought election for governor of Mexico’s most populous state, according to early official returns, state officials said. TOLUCA, Mexico — The candidate from Mexico’s governing party appeared to be heading toward an extremely narrow victory in the fiercely fought election for governor of the country’s most populous state, electoral officials said late Sunday, citing early official returns.
But Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the populist leader of the main opposition party, quickly sought to discredit the authorities, saying that the preliminary count for the vote in the State of Mexico “did not correspond to reality” and that technically, the results were “still a tie.” But a top opposition leader quickly rejected the announcement and vowed to prove that his party’s handpicked candidate had beaten the candidate of the governing party, the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the P.R.I.
According to officials, an initial sampling gave Mr. del Mazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the P.R.I., 32.75 to 33.59 percent of the vote, while his main opponent, Delfina Gómez Álvarez of the National Regeneration Movement, or Morena, received 30.73 to 31.53 percent. The officials said they had a 95 percent level of confidence that their statistical calculations would hold up once all the votes are counted, a process expected to be completed on Monday and officially enshrined on Wednesday. According to State of Mexico officials, an initial sampling gave Alfredo del Mazo Maza, the P.R.I. candidate, 32.75 to 33.59 percent of the vote, while his main opponent, Delfina Gómez Álvarez of the left-wing National Regeneration Movement, received 30.73 to 31.53 percent. The officials said they had a 95 percent level of confidence that their calculations would hold up once all the votes were counted, a process expected to be completed on Monday and officially enshrined on Wednesday.
It was a historically tight contest for Mexico’s most coveted state governorship, and the results could be a harbinger of next year’s presidential election. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the combative, populist leader of Ms. Gómez’s party, known as Morena, quickly posted a video on Twitter railing against “the mafia of power” and saying that the official calculations “did not correspond to reality.”
Sunday’s election capped a fiercely contested campaign that boiled down to a fight between two main political forces and the distinct futures they promised. Would voters support a deeply flawed but familiar status quo — the P.R.I., a party led by President Enrique Peña Nieto — or the chance for something different, Morena, led by Mr. López Obrador? “Delfina won, and we will prove it,” he declared. “We will not accept any sort of electoral fraud.”
While the other contenders in the race included candidates representing two long-established parties, the conservative National Action Party and the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, neither presented a major challenge to the front-runners. The close count did not come as a surprise. Weeks of polling had suggested a potential tossup in the race for the post, Mexico’s most coveted state governorship.
The last polls before Election Day showed Mr. del Mazo and Ms. Gómez locked in a statistical dead heat, an extraordinary situation for the P.R.I., which has held the governor’s office uninterrupted for nearly 90 years, often winning elections by wide margins. The last polls before Election Day showed Mr. del Mazo and Ms. Gómez locked in a statistical dead heat, an extraordinary predicament for the P.R.I., which has held the governor’s office uninterrupted for nearly 90 years, often winning elections by wide margins.
Even Mr. del Mazo, in one of his final campaign rallies last week, acknowledged that his party was “facing a challenge like never before.”Even Mr. del Mazo, in one of his final campaign rallies last week, acknowledged that his party was “facing a challenge like never before.”
“The future of the P.R.I., the future of this country, depends on our victory,” he said.“The future of the P.R.I., the future of this country, depends on our victory,” he said.
The bitterly fought race was marked by accusations of fraud and malfeasance that included vote-buying, intimidation and the confiscation of voting cards. The agency that monitors electoral crime has opened more than 230 cases regarding irregularities, more than double the number in the last election six years ago. A victory for the P.R.I. was considered critical to the party’s chances of retaining control of the presidency and holding off the rise of Morena and Mr. López Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City and a two-time presidential candidate, who is considered a top contender in the presidential election next year.
“I think the people want another party,” said Juan Hernández, 48, an airport employee, who was sitting in a square in the town of Ocoyoacac after voting for one of the opposition candidates. “But the P.R.I. has all the power and the money and is putting all that money in the campaign.” The contest, which was scarred by accusations of fraud and malfeasance, boiled down to a fight between two main political forces and the distinct futures they promised.
Regardless of the outcome, Mr. López Obrador, who has declared his intention to run for president next year and has fashioned himself as the candidate best equipped to battle with President Trump, stands to benefit greatly. Would voters support a deeply flawed but familiar centrist status quo — the P.R.I. — or seek a leftward shift with the upstart, three-year-old Morena party, which promised to break from establishment, patronage politics?
The strong showing by Ms. Gómez, the former director of an elementary school who entered politics in 2012, will help establish Mr. López Obrador’s young party as a legitimate national force. Should the electoral officials’ math hold up, the hairbreadth victory is likely to provide only limited comfort to Mr. del Mazo’s party. The state has served as the political redoubt of the party for decades, and the governor’s office has been an electoral slam-dunk.
And even if the election officials’ predictions hold up, securing the victory for Mr. del Mazo, Mr. López Obrador will probably point to the closely fought contest as a clear indication of the P.R.I.’s vulnerabilities. In the previous election for governor, in 2011, the P.R.I. candidate prevailed with more than 61 percent of the vote.
For the P.R.I., a win for Mr. del Mazo, a former congressman and mayor, is essential if the party hopes to sustain its national dominance. But the campaign and the election exposed the P.R.I.’s deep and widespread unpopularity in the state. In a poll published last week in the Reforma newspaper, about 75 percent of respondents said it was time for another party to run the state, and nearly half said they would “never” vote for Mr. del Mazo, a former congressman and mayor.
Mr. del Mazo is a product of the party’s machinery in the State of Mexico, and a scion of P.R.I. royalty: His father and grandfather were governors of the state, and Mr. Peña Nieto, who previously served as the state’s governor, is his cousin. The state wraps around Mexico City and, with more than 16 million inhabitants, has absorbed most of the region’s population growth in recent decades. In some ways, it is a microcosm of the country, embodying its extreme socioeconomic inequality, soaring corruption and rampant crime.
Voters also cast ballots on Sunday in governors’ races in the states of Coahuila and Nayarit, though national and international attention was focused on the State of Mexico, where the potential implications were greater. These problems weighed on Mr. del Mazo’s campaign, which was also burdened by the deeply unpopular performance of President Enrique Peña Nieto.
For P.R.I. supporters in the State of Mexico, it was a day of unusual tension and nervousness. During the campaign, Ms. Gómez and the other opposition candidates repeatedly sought to cast the election as a referendum as much on the P.R.I.’s leadership as on the party’s regional governance.
“I’m afraid,” said Dolores Alvarado, 67, a school cafeteria worker in the municipality of Ecatepec, who was planning to vote for Mr. del Mazo. “It’s better to stick with the devil you know than an unfamiliar one.” They urged voters to break the P.R.I.’s dynastic control as the only solution for ridding the state — and by extension, the nation — of its chronic corruption and impunity, and finally curbing the violence. Mr. del Mazo is a scion of P.R.I. royalty: His father and grandfather were governors of the state, and Mr. Peña Nieto, who previously served as the state’s governor, is his cousin.
For voters leaning toward other candidates, their best chance ever of unseating the P.R.I. was palpable. “Today there is hope. I think there really is a chance, because people are fed up,” said Salvador Albino, 47, a chauffeur for an affluent family who was on his way to vote in the municipality of Naucalpan on Sunday. “We need something different. We need something new.”
“Today there is hope. I think there really is a chance, because people are fed up,” said Salvador Albino, 47, a chauffeur for an affluent family who was on his way to vote in the municipality of Naucalpan. “We need something different. We need something new.”
But optimism among opposition supporters was severely tempered by the hard experience of having lived through so many decades of P.R.I. dominance, cemented by the party’s formidable campaign machinery and its ability to muster votes through patronage jobs, handouts and other techniques.But optimism among opposition supporters was severely tempered by the hard experience of having lived through so many decades of P.R.I. dominance, cemented by the party’s formidable campaign machinery and its ability to muster votes through patronage jobs, handouts and other techniques.
The state wraps around Mexico City and, with more than 16 million inhabitants, has absorbed most of the region’s population growth in recent decades. In some ways it is a microcosm of the country, embodying its extreme socioeconomic inequality, soaring corruption and rampant crime. “I think the people want another party,” said Juan Hernández, 48, an airport employee, who was sitting in a square in the town of Ocoyoacac on Sunday after voting for one of the opposition candidates. “But the P.R.I. has all the power and the money and is putting all that money in the campaign.”
These problems were a drag on Mr. del Mazo’s campaign, which was also burdened by the unpopular performance of Mr. Peña Nieto. Mr. del Mazo also stood to benefit from the fractured nature of the opposition, which counted, in addition to Ms. Gómez, several other challengers including Josefina Vázquez Mota, of the conservative National Action Party, and Juan Zepeda, of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party. Efforts to form opposition coalitions repeatedly failed.
Still, for P.R.I. supporters in the State of Mexico, Sunday was a day of unusual tension and nervousness.
“I’m afraid,” said Dolores Alvarado, 67, a school cafeteria worker in the municipality of Ecatepec, who was planning to vote for Mr. del Mazo. “It’s better to stick with the devil you know than an unfamiliar one.”
Voters also cast ballots on Sunday in governors’ races in the states of Coahuila and Nayarit, but national and international attention was focused on the State of Mexico where the implications were far greater.
Regardless of the final vote tally, Mr. López Obrador, who has fashioned himself as the candidate best equipped to battle with President Trump, stands to benefit greatly from the close results.
The strong showing by Ms. Gómez, the former director of an elementary school who entered politics in 2012, will help establish Mr. López Obrador’s young party as a legitimate national force.
The P.R.I.’s challenges in the state were perhaps foretold last year, when the party lost control of four governorships it had also held uninterrupted since 1929.
But the State of Mexico held the crown jewel of governorships and served as a major engine of the party’s nationwide success. The party has been accused for years of rerouting funds from the state till into crucial regional and national campaigns.
The P.R.I. poured lots of money and attention into the contest for governor, knowing that a victory was essential for its sustenance as the nation’s dominant party.
If history is any indicator, however, the election may still be far from over.
In the 2006 presidential election, Mr. López Obrador lost to Felipe Calderón by less than a percentage point and disputed the results for months, including rallying his supporters to the streets of the capital, where they set up blockades lasting weeks to demand a recount.
In 2012, he was again the runner-up in the presidential election, by about seven percentage points, and challenged the outcome in court, saying unsuccessfully that the winner, President Peña Nieto, had engaged in widespread vote-buying and campaign overspending.