Mexicans in Michoacan vote today for state slates
2011-11-13
Posted by: badanov
For a map, click here. To read the latest full Rantburg report on the growing Moreira debt scandal, click here
By Chris Covert
As many as 3 million voters in the Mexican state of Michoacan will cast their ballots for a slate of state and local candidates in the last state election until the 2012 presidential election next year.
The statewide election is considered to be so important as a last election that the leaders of all three mainstream parties, the Partido Revolucionario Institutcional (PRI), the Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) and Partido Revolucion Democratica have all taken up temporary residence in the state to oversee their respective campaigns.
The Michoacan election has national implications beyond being the last election before 2012: Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa's sister, Luisa Maria "Cocoa" Calderon Hinojosa is running under the PAN banner.
Other candidates running include Fausto Vallejo for PRI and Silvano Aureoles Conejo for the PRD. The governor of Michoacan, Leonel Godoy is a PRD governor scheduled to step down early next year.
Michoacan is a state that has been in the past beset with a massive security problems as it had been the center for La Familia drug cartel, which is a criminal organization the national government had claimed was all but wiped out in a series of gunfights and arrests with Mexican security forces almost a year ago.
Since that time, a new organization, Los Caballeros Templarios, or Knights Templars have begun drug trafficking operations in Michoacan formed partially from remaining elements of La Familia.
Competition among remaining elements of La Familia, Los Caballeros Templarios and Los Zetas have created a severe security situation so much so that only a few months ago 1,800 effectives with the Polica Federal (PF) were deployed to Michoacan along with undisclosed numbers of Mexican Army and Naval Infantry troops.
To read the Rantburg report on the latest deployment of PF troops to Michoacan, click here.
The total of federal security troops in the state is reportedly more than 10,000.
The elections in Michoacan are also the first big test for PRI leader Humberto Moreira Valdes, the former governor of Coahuila who is suffering from attacks by several other political parties for his role in the ballooning the Coahuila's public debt. Attacks against him include charges of using proceeds from bank load to bankroll PRI political campaigns in other states including the critical Mexico state election last July.
In that election as well as in Coahuila, PRI crushed the opposition at the state and at the local levels as well. The string of victories in those states -- and in Guerrero and Nayarit -- Moreira has amassed in many ways mirrors the stunning success his predecessor, Beatriz Parades Rangel had in 2010, when the PRI under her control flipped or retained 11 of 14 statehouses.
Mexican electoral law, nationally as well as at the state level, limits the amount candidates can spend, however PAN's leader, Gustavo Madero, has launched into a strategy of making Moreira the issue with his profligate fiscal habits while governor of Coahuila, as an offset to the massive political advantage PRI has throughout Mexico.
PAN's fortunes are declining, suffering from constant attacks over president Calderon's security strategy, which the president defends constantly these days. Making Moreira a target is an inexpensive and legal way to blunt the power of PRI. For Madero, that strategy cannot backfire even if Coca Calderon loses, if PRI loses as well.
The polls close at 1800 hrs local time, 1900 hrs EST.