PAN panned in Coahuila

With very low turnout (40%), Coahuila legislative elections held over the weekend resulted in a huge victory for PRI, and a rout for PAN.  PRD and the state United Cohauila Democratic (UCD) Party may barely have enough votes for even proportional seats.  The twenty direct election districts were all PRI victories (in Saltillo, there was a PRI-Green-Workers-United Coahuila Democratic fusion ticket) were all won outright by PRI.  Depending on final results PAN, which lost by margins of two to one or three to one in several districts will still be the second party, but only through proportional representation seats.

To avoid the problems with a single party dominating the legislatures, no party can hold more than 2/3rds of the seats.  Coahuila’s legislature has 31 seats.  With all twenty district seats won directly by PRI, the 11 proportional seats will go to PAN, unless PRD and/or UCD won over 3.5 percent of the vote, which will entitle them to one seat.

While of course, there are plenty of allegations of fraud, PRI has been making a remarkable comeback since its loss in the 2006 Presidential election,  as both the PRD struggles with internal differences, and voters have lost interest in the conservative (or, in Mexican terms, “liberal”) PAN.

(Sources: Jornada, Milenio de Torreon, IEPC Coahuila)