Chiapas Results Expected this Weekend
 AFP
| | Gubernatorial candidate Jose Antonio Aguilar Bodegas (C), of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), responds to questions during a news conference in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas in southern Mexico. (Reuters/Daniel LeClair) |
Final results of the tight governor's race in Chiapas state, in which Mexico's main leftist party holds a slight lead over a candidate backed by President Vicente Fox, won't be available until the weekend, electoral officials said Wednesday.
Preliminary results from last weekend's election showed Juan Sabines of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, leading Jose Antonio Aguilar Bodegas of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, by just over 2,000 votes.
With 94 percent of Chiapas' 4,761 polling places counted, Sabines had 48.39 percent, or 518,118 votes, compared with 48.17 percent, or 515,713 votes, for Aguilar.
Both candidates claimed victory late Sunday, holding celebrations within blocks of each other in the steamy state capital of Tuxtla Gutierrez.
Noe Diaz, president of the Chiapas state electoral council, said he expects to declare a governor-elect by Sunday.
Aguilar, a 56-year-old former federal senator, is backed by Fox's conservative National Action Party as the result of an alliance to try to defeat Sabines, a 38-year-old former Tuxtla Gutierrez mayor.
Aguilar said the election was tainted by government meddling, vote buying and other irregularities, and has vowed to go to the state electoral court if Sabines is declared the winner. |
Vallarta Weddings
News Around the Republic of Mexico | August 2006 
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