MEXICO CITY – Mexicans were voting in local elections in 14 states on July 7 with one key governorship at stake after a campaign marred by violence against candidates.
The governor’s seat in the state of Baja California, held by the conservative National Action Party (PAN) opposition for the past 24 years, was the biggest prize in the regional polls and its result could affect a national reforms pact.
About 32 million voters cast ballots in 931 of the country’s 2,440 municipalities as well as for candidates in state legislatures in 14 of 32 federal entities.
Soldiers were providing security in several states while the federal attorney general’s office deployed some 1,500 agents following a rash of violence that took the lives of at least six candidates, campaign workers and their relatives in recent weeks.
The latest victim was Aquiles González, a mayoral campaign manager of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in the northern state of Zacatecas who was murdered on July 5.
The old ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which reclaimed the presidency in December after a 12-year absence, hopes to triumph in Baja California, home to the vital border town of Tijuana.
President Enrique Peña Nieto made two big promises when he took office: Reducing the level of drug violence that left 70,000 dead during his predecessor’s six-year term, and keeping the PRI’s old undemocratic ways in the history books.
Peña Nieto struck a Pact for Mexico with the PAN and the PRD that led to major education and telecommunication reforms, and he hopes to breathe new life into the energy sector and tax system.
[AFP (Mexico), 07/07/2013; El Universal (Mexico), 08/07/2013]
MEXICO CITY – Mexicans were voting in local elections in 14 states on July 7 with one key governorship at stake after a campaign marred by violence against candidates.
The governor’s seat in the state of Baja California, held by the conservative National Action Party (PAN) opposition for the past 24 years, was the biggest prize in the regional polls and its result could affect a national reforms pact.
About 32 million voters cast ballots in 931 of the country’s 2,440 municipalities as well as for candidates in state legislatures in 14 of 32 federal entities.
Soldiers were providing security in several states while the federal attorney general’s office deployed some 1,500 agents following a rash of violence that took the lives of at least six candidates, campaign workers and their relatives in recent weeks.
The latest victim was Aquiles González, a mayoral campaign manager of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in the northern state of Zacatecas who was murdered on July 5.
The old ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which reclaimed the presidency in December after a 12-year absence, hopes to triumph in Baja California, home to the vital border town of Tijuana.
President Enrique Peña Nieto made two big promises when he took office: Reducing the level of drug violence that left 70,000 dead during his predecessor’s six-year term, and keeping the PRI’s old undemocratic ways in the history books.
Peña Nieto struck a Pact for Mexico with the PAN and the PRD that led to major education and telecommunication reforms, and he hopes to breathe new life into the energy sector and tax system.
[AFP (Mexico), 07/07/2013; El Universal (Mexico), 08/07/2013]