Tijuana mayor's race could be annulled
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20041110-9...
By Sandra Dibble
November 10, 2004
TIJUANA ? Think San Diego is the only city taking a legal route to the mayor's office? Just look south.
Tijuana is on pins and needles this week with the possibility that a federal electoral tribunal could annul the Aug. 1 mayoral election.
More than three months after he was declared the victor ? and less than three weeks before he is scheduled to take office ? racetrack owner Jorge Hank
Rhon could still be barred from City Hall by a judicial decision.
"The atmosphere is every bit as interesting as on Election Day," said Carlos Barboza, the municipal president of Hank's Institutional Revolutionary
Party, the PRI.
Though it has until Nov. 30 to make a ruling, a federal electoral tribunal in Mexico City is expected to decide this week whether to annul the
election, party leaders said.
The National Action Party, or PAN, is pushing for the annulment, charging, among other things, that Hank's campaign went far above the campaign
spending limit of 4.8 million pesos, nearly $420,000.
"What's at stake here is democracy," said S?crates Bastida, the PAN's municipal president in Tijuana. "The will of the people was purchased."
But the PRI's Barboza denies the allegations.
"They're lying. They're lying," he said this week. "We spent what the law stipulates, even a little bit less."
The ruling of the Mexico City-based electoral court, known as the Trife, is final and cannot be appealed. The court has taken on a growing role in
political races across Mexico, ruling on technical and legal questions that once went unexplored.
In the state of Tlaxcala, which holds its gubernatorial race Sunday, the Trife ruled that the governor's wife could run for the office and that the
Democratic Revolution Party had no right to drop her after she won a party primary.
Late last month, the Trife upheld a Baja California state electoral tribunal's decision to reverse the results of the mayor's race in the state
capital, Mexicali.
Winning the August election in Tijuana was a coup for the PRI, which had not won a mayor's race in the city since 1989. Hank's victory reverberated
across Mexico, boosting the party's hopes as it prepares for the 2006 presidential election.
If the decision is annulled, the election would be rescheduled.
In the meantime, Baja California Gov. Eugenio Elorduy would appoint a provisional 15-member City Council ? including a mayor ? that would take office
Dec. 1, and could serve a year or less, depending on the Trife's ruling. The members would have to be approved by the state congress.
This would not be the first annulment for Tijuana.
In 1968, the state government annulled the Tijuana mayor's race and appointed a provisional City Council. PAN leaders say voter fraud was rampant and
that their candidate was robbed of his victory.
"It was shameless stealing. They took the ballot boxes. They burned the result sheets," Bastida said. "Now they steal, but it's more refined."
But PRI party leaders say the PAN has been stirring up confusion with its allegations, and that Hank's victory is rightfully theirs.
"The PAN has undertaken a dirty, black campaign of attacks," Barboza said.
As the tension mounts in anticipation of the Trife's decision, both the PRI and the PAN have been waging public campaigns through radio and television
spots, leaflets and posters.
"Thanks to you, Jorge Hank is mayor," reads a PRI poster that went up this week. "Tijuana deserves respect."
But a leaflet distributed by the PAN tells another story: "They mocked the law ? and you."
Bastida said this week that the PAN will abide by the Trife's decision, just as it did when the ruling went against the party's candidate in Mexicali.
Barboza said he cannot imagine the ruling will be unfavorable to the PRI in the case of Tijuana.
"If it's annulled, we have established that we will continue to defend our votes," he said.
Some observers doubt that the PAN has much of a chance of winning an annulment: "There is not sufficient proof," said V?ctor Alejandro Espinoza, a
political analyst at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, a think tank outside Tijuana.
But the atmosphere has become highly charged and some fear that a negative outcome for the PRI could lead to violence.
"It's very dangerous, very unstable politically," said Benedicto Ruiz, an analyst at the Universidad Iberoamericana. "It's been a long time since I've
seen Baja California this way."
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