Opposition Ahead in Yucatan State Vote
 Reuters
| | Ivonne Ortega, center, candidate for governor of the Mexican state of Yucatan, for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, (PRI), Beatriz Paredes, left, and unidentified supporters in appear in Merida, Mexico, Sunday, May 20, 2007. (AP/Israel Leal) |
Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), Mexico's opposition party, looked likely to win the Yucatan state governor's race yesterday, a setback for Felipe Calderon, the president, in the first election since he took office in December, early results showed.
With 6 percent of the vote counted, Ivonne Ortega, a PRI candidate, was leading with 49 % support. Xavier Abreu, a ruling National Action Party candidate, had 42 %.
Media exit polls and pollsters' quick counts also put the PRI solidly ahead, and Ortega claimed victory in Merida, the state capital.
Despite the reversal for Calderon's Party, if the PRI candidate holds the early lead it could augur well for the president's reform agenda in Congress.
Government meddling
PRI lawmakers have threatened to curb their co-operation in Congress if they perceive that there was too much federal government meddling in the election or if Calderon's party held onto the governor's post.
The PAN won the Yucatan governorship in 2001 from the PRI, which had long dominated politics in the state, which is famous for its Mayan ruins.
Calderon, who started his six-year term in December, won a razor-thin victory in Mexico's July presidential race ahead of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution ( PRD).
The PRD's candidate in the Yucatan vote garnered less than 2 % support after early returns.
Backed by his own party and the PRI and despite worker opposition, Calderon won a major victory in Congress in March with a pension reform that introduced individual accounts for public sector workers.
On Wall Street, Mexico-watchers saw the passage of the pension bill as a sign that Calderon might successfully push through the overhaul of fiscal, energy and labour laws that eluded Vicente Fox, his predecessor. |
Vallarta Weddings
News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2007 
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