A Guide to the 2004 Mexican State Elections George W. Grayson July 2004 Western Hemisphere Election Study Series About CSIS For four decades, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has been dedicated to providing world leaders with strategic insights on—and policy solutions to—current and emerging global issues. CSIS is led by John J. Hamre, former U.S. deputy secretary of defense. It is guided by a board of trustees chaired by former U.S. senator Sam Nunn and consisting of prominent individuals from both the public and private sectors. The CSIS staff of 190 researchers and support staff focus primarily on three subject areas. First, CSIS addresses the full spectrum of new challenges to national and international security. Second, it maintains resident experts on all of the world’s major geographical regions. Third, it is committed to helping to develop new methods of governance for the global age; to this end, CSIS has programs on technology and public policy, international trade and finance, and energy. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., CSIS is private, bipartisan, and tax-exempt. CSIS does not take specific policy positions; accordingly, all views expressed herein should be understood to be solely those of the author. CSIS Americas Program Leadership Sidney Weintraub, director, Americas Program, and William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy Viviane Vanni, coordinator, Americas Program Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, director, Mexico Project Sara Rioff, research assistant, Mexico Project Miguel Diaz, director, South America Project Elizabeth Hetzler, research associate, South America Project Andre Belelieu, research associate, Canada Project © 2004 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved. This report was prepared under the aegis of the CSIS Western Hemisphere Election Studies series. Comments are welcome and should be directed to: CSIS Americas Program 1800 K Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20006 Phone: (202) 775-3150 Fax: (202) 466-4739 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.csis.org/ Contents Acknowledgments v Introduction 1 Mexican Electoral Calendar, 2004 5 State Elections in 2004 Aguascalientes 11 Chihuahua 16 Durango 20 Oaxaca 25 Puebla 30 Sinaloa 34 Tamaulipas 40 Tlaxcala 45 Veracruz 49 Zacatecas 54 Local Elections in 2004 Baja California 61 Chiapas 64 Michoacán 67 Yucatán 70 Mexican Electoral Calendar, 2005 73 Possible Gubernatorial Candidates in 2005 74 Conclusions 81 About the Author 86 iii Acknowledgments More than a dozen experts in Mexican politics took time from their busy schedules to make comments on different components of this study. I owe a huge debt to Pro- fessor Oscar Aguilar Asencio for reading the entire manuscript and offering excellent suggestions that greatly improved the final version. Others who made astute observations were Ambassador Jorge Montaño, Ambassador Alfredo Phillips-Olmedo, Lic. José Gil Olmos Rodríguez, Lic. Jesús Rangel, Lic. Antonio Ocaranza Fernández, Lic. Fred Alvarez, Professor Jeffrey Weldon, and Lic. Federico Berrueto Pruneda. Professor Weldon’s encyclopedic knowledge of the Mexican Congress amazes and delights me, while Lic. Berrueto’s essays and data presented in the journal Voz y Voto continue to dazzle the readers with their lucidity, scope, and depth of analysis. Manuel Bravo de la Vega, a self-described “political junkie,” responded immediately to a half dozen e-mails with trenchant insights about cam- paigns in his home state of Puebla, as well as information about a dozen other states. Although not representing the views of their parties, the following individuals went out of their way to help me collect and analyze data. The PAN’s Ing. Alfredo Rivadeneyra, Lic. Rolando García Alonso, Lic. Pablo Enriquez, Lic. José de Jesús Valdez de los Santos, Rocío Martínez Mendel, and—above all—communications specialist María Feliciana Alvarez provided prompt, accurate, and helpful responses to my inquiries. Even when my fax machine jammed late on a Friday afternoon, “Feli” Alvarez persisted until she accomplished the necessary transmissions. Rumors abound that PAN officials are afraid to have pollsters place her name on any list of prospective presidential candidates, lest she immediately become the party’s front-runner. Former senator Cuauhtémoc Sandoval, who coordinates the PRD’s Senate international affairs office, and Lic. Maricarmen Soria Narváez, an extremely versatile and well-connected young party leader, generously assisted me. Don Cuauhtémoc has forgotten more about politics in Guerrero than most people have ever learned. Michoacán state official and former deputy Carlos Heredia Zubi- eta patiently explained to me the intricacies of the “desafuero,” a process that strips public officials from immunity from prosecution. His explanations were enhanced by clarification from his precocious youngsters, Ofelia and Juan Carlos. Lic. Fausto Muciño Durán, general coordinator of interinstitutional affairs at the PRI in Mex- ico State, furnished hard-to-find biographical information on leaders in his state. Meanwhile, Lic. Rosa Maria del Carmen Lizárraga, director of Sinaloa state’s social communication office, and her colleagues Norma Valverde and María Elena Murillo, went far beyond the call of duty in tracking down information on candi- dates in their state. Francisco Cuamea, co-editor of the local section of the newspaper Noroeste, helped me find the Web site and biographical résumé of Heri- berto Félix Guerra, a gubernatorial candidate in Sinaloa. With barely an hour’s warning, Lic. Fausto Zapata and Lic. Maria “Malie” Luisa Escobedo used their wits to find recondite information about politicians in Hidalgo. Lic. Guillermo Suárez v vi A Guide to the 2004 Mexican State Elections Santana, an intrepid researcher at the newspaper Reforma, must have a secret vat of magic powder that he uses with the mastery of a wizard to discover names, dates, and places. Also especially helpful were Lic. Rafael Riva Palacio Galimberti and Señora Hortensia Hernández Bello of the International Affairs Office of Mexico’s Instituto Federal Electoral, which is so ably headed by Lic. Manuel Carrillo Poblano. The presence of such talented professionals at IFE helps explain the worldwide acclaim it enjoys for informing the public, promoting voter registration, organizing fair elections, and computing the results accurately. The institute’s new president, Dr. Luis Carlos Ugalde, is preserving the tradition of excellence established by his pre- decessor, Dr. José Woldenberg. Steven Combs, an outstanding graduate student at both the College of William & Mary’s Thomas Jefferson School of Public Policy and its School of Business, spent scores of hours collecting, assimilating, and organizing data. If this Herculean effort were not sufficient, he also helped improve my roughly hewn prose. A special thanks is owed to Mexican and U.S. officials who were kind enough to speak with me off the record. Both countries can be proud of their professionals who have opted for public service. This report would never have been possible without the encouragement, contri- butions, and commitment of Armand Peschard-Svedrup, director of CSIS’s Mexico Project. Nor could we have brought the publication to fruition without the incred- ible efforts of the Mexico Project’s Sara Rioff, an extraordinarily talented young professional who meticulously examined the manuscript and made consistently helpful suggestions for improving it. With such bountiful assistance, the author bears complete responsibility for any errors that may have crept into these pages. A Guide to the 2004 Mexican State Elections George W. Grayson Introduction The late Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill gained immortality by coining the phrase: “All politics is local.” The epigram of the former Speaker of the House does not apply to Mexico this year. National factors impinge on many of the 14 state and local elec- tions that take place in 2004. The most important of these considerations is the presidential showdown that will take place in two years. When the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ruled the roost, public campaigns for the presidency rarely began until the last year of the incumbent’s term. In consultation with the so- called revolutionary family, the chief executive selected his successor. While maneu- vering behind closed doors, presidential hopefuls risked seeing their careers “burned” if they openly proclaimed their ambitions. The PRI’s loss of the Los Pinos presidential residence four years ago eliminated such king making. Moreover, the successful candidate—Vicente Fox Quesada, a member of the National Action Party (PAN)—spent nearly three years barnstorm- ing the country for his party’s nomination and for popular support in the general election. As a result, presidential candidacies are proliferating like mushrooms in a dank cave, and Fox—unlike his PRI predecessors—had been “missing in action” in the process until May 31, when he scolded Felipe Calderón Hinojosa for announc- ing his candidacy at a gathering hosted by the governor of Jalisco. Fox’s weakness became apparent when Calderón resigned as energy secretary and broad segments of the PAN—including those backing other aspirants—came to his defense. Although his wife, Marta Sahagún, continues to travel throughout the country with a view to running for an as yet unidentified office in 2006, Fox appears increasingly disillusioned over his inability to move initiatives through an opposition- dominated Congress. 1 2 A Guide to the 2004 Mexican