PRI and pre-Campaign Coverage

State elections are this Sunday in Oaxaca, Baja California and Aguascalientes.

While any win in Oaxaca is going to be suspect (and even some within the party expect to do badly), the winners in these states may be PRI. The PRD-led coalition is the main opposition force in Oaxaca (in elective politics, that is).

In Baja California, the colorful (or notorious or sinister, depending on your attitude) Carlos Hank Rhon could very well win the Governorship. Widely beleived to have oganized crime ties, and the prime suspect in several unsolved murders, including that of pesky investigative reporters, Hank is naturally running as a “law and order” candidate. James McKinney’s excellent profile (subscription required) in Wednesday’s New York Times, makes me think of Hank as a Mexican version of Lousiana’s Eddy Edwards. When Edwards ran for Governor against white supremacist David Duke, Edwards supporters made bumper stickers reading “Vote Edwards. A scoundrel, but not a Nazi”.

The PRI, in a fusion ticket with the Greens and a state party, may have the edge, though PAN might hold on to their legislative majority. PRI-istas were caught recently distributing food bank rations in poor neighborhoods, leading the Archdiocese of Tijuana to remind the faithful that buying or selling a vote is equally sinful. But, then again, the PRI is traditionally an anti-clerical party, and there was no word on whether the food donations includes loaves and fishes.

I really pay very little attention to Aguascalientes, and haven’t a clue what to expect there. PAN has done well there every since sweeping on on Vicente Fox’s coattails in 2000. Like in some U.S. states, where Republicans swept into office on Ronald Reagan’s coattails, the religious conservatives thought they had a mandate in Aguascalientes, like they thought they had in places like Kansas or Iowa.

In Kansas, it was ridicule over attempts to teach “creationism” in the schools that did in the Republicans. In Aguacalientes it may be gays and swear words. In 2001, the PAN city council in Aguascalientes had signs posted in the city parks reading “No dogs or gays.” Widely reported and internationally ridiculed, even those who supported PAN’s conservative economic policies were less than thrilled with the Party. People just laughed when the city council last year tried to enforce a law against swearing in public. Fuck it, they said.

Aguascalientes has been relatively prosperous, and this is the center of PAN country, but people may be ready for a change. PRD has very little presence in the state, making PRI the only real alternative.

Complicating things, the PRI leaders are meeting this weekend in Durango to discuss the party’s future direction. Having ceded it’s ideological traditions (it is still a member party of Socialist International) to the PRD, and unable to mount sucessful national campaigns (PAN seems to have the edge in dubious electoral victories now), it seems to have no national focus, and is a dramatically different party depending on what state you are in. The PRI sponsored abortion reforms in the Federal District, while opposing them in Puebla. What happens in the states will play an important part in determining whether the party redefines itself, or continue letting internal disputes allow opponents to peel off segments of its core support, as with Esther Elba Gordilla, who pulled out of the party to form her own minor party, which sides with PAN, except in Oaxaca, where Gordilla (the head of the official teacher’s union) backs Ulises Ruiz and PRI over her own dissidentteachers.

Party chair Beatriz Paredes is an oddball PRI leader — the honest ones are usually incompetent and the competent ones are crooks, but she’s both honest and competent — has her work cut out for her.