Officials weigh overturning Tijuana election, citing fraud
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/10197965.htm?1...
By SUSANA HAYWARD
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Nov. 16, 2004
TIJUANA, Mexico - Mexico's Federal Electoral Commission may overturn the outcome of one of the most disputed elections in recent Mexican history as
early as Wednesday.
But don't tell Jorge Hank Rhon, the mayor-elect of this sprawling border city, that he might lose. An ostentatious racetrack, casino and zoo owner
who's been accused of everything from murder to drug trafficking and money laundering, Hank's confident that he won.
"I never thought of the possibility of losing, or I wouldn't have entered the race," said Hank, a longtime member of the Institutional Revolutionary
Party, or PRI in its Spanish initials, which ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000. "My campaign was clean, legal."
The National Action Party, or PAN, which had governed Tijuana from 1989 until its loss to Hank, has charged him with spending three times the allowed
campaign limit, just under half a million dollars.
The Federal Electoral Commission's Supreme Tribunal has until Nov. 30 to decide, though it announced Tuesday that it would begin meeting on the
subject Wednesday.
Official results from the Aug. 1 vote show that Hank - whose wealthy late father, Carlos Hank Gonzalez, was governor of Mexico state and mayor of
Mexico City - won by 1 percentage point.
Jorge Ramos, the 36-year-old PAN mayoral candidate, has requested that the election be annulled. Otherwise, he charged, it shows that the PRI can
still get away with vote-buying and fraud.
"It's a disgrace for the country, for democracy," said Ramos, whose gray-speckled hair contrasts with his youthful idealism. "If we lose, it can
benefit us. People will realize what Hank is about. I'm here to stay."
Hank, 48, is scheduled to take office Dec. 1. He said his No. 1 goal was to fight crime in this city of 1.5 million just south of San Diego.
He also wants to bring orderliness to the city, where there's a murder a day.
That's a tall order. Tijuana is the No. 1 jumping-off point for Mexicans who want to cross into the United States illegally.
An estimated 80,000 people arrive here every day. They get jobs, make money and jump across the border. All those outsiders give the city a transient
feel that hurts the community, Hank said. "If I could, I would move the border to Canada."
Hank long has had a reputation for quirkiness, a sense reinforced in person. Sitting in his racetrack office, he's wearing a red suede vest. His
office is crowded with terrariums filled with snakes and lizards and cages holding rats, birds of prey, parakeets and shrieking parrots. Behind his
office is his pride and joy, a private zoo with 20,000 animals.
He's been accused of involvement in drug smuggling and other illegal activities, including the murders of journalists. One California law-enforcement
official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Hank's being mayor of Tijuana "is like John Gotti becoming mayor of New York City," but the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration expressed no concern. "We cooperate well with Mexican authorities," DEA spokesman Misha Pastro said.
Hank said he wanted to hire and train better police officers, though not necessarily raise salaries, now $80 a week. "We can never compete with what
drug traffickers pay," he said.
Hank earned popularity in Tijuana's poor neighborhoods through a stream of donations to charities, hospitals and the Red Cross. Admission to his zoo
is free for children. Many say he's so wealthy - officially worth $500 million - that he won't steal public funds.
"We don't care if Hank killed journalists, is a drug trafficker or a money launderer. If he's a good mayor, he will be governor," said Jose Aguilar,
60, a transportation union member. "Poor people know this."
Hank's had a number of brushes with the law.
In 1991, the U.S. Customs Service arrested an aide transporting a rare tiger cub, who was fined $25,000. Hank was arrested four years later in Mexico
City's airport on charges of trying to smuggle ocelot furs and ivory carvings. He said they were fakes. The case was dropped.
In 1999, a leaked U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center report implied that Hank's family was involved in money laundering and drugs. Challenged by
lawyers, then-Attorney General Janet Reno rejected the report and said it wasn't an official U.S. position.
"Look, I'm different, extravagant," Hank said. "I have hundreds of animals, a zoo. People don't understand how this is possible. I spend money on what
I want, so I'm accused of everything," he said. "But I've never done anything illegal."
In 1988, two of Hank's bodyguards were convicted in the killing of Hector "Gato" Felix, a co-owner of the crusading weekly newspaper Zeta who wrote
about Hank and his alleged ties to a drug ring run by the Arellano family.
"They said they didn't do it, and I had nothing to do with it," Hank said. "I have no idea why he was killed."
On June 22, Francisco Ortiz, Zeta's editor, was shot to death on a street. One of his last columns criticized Hank's candidacy. The police suspect
traffickers.
"Hank is pragmatic, cold, calculating, an exotic eccentric," said Victor Clark, a social anthropologist who runs the Center for Binational Human
Rights and teaches at San Diego University. "While Hank is not a man of ideas, his virtue is listening to people. Who's to say he wouldn't make a good
mayor?"
The PAN accuses Hank of buying votes and fraudulently registering voters by offering them a chance to win one of 20 trucks in a raffle. The PAN said
Hank never gave away the trucks. It also charges that Hank's use of his Caliente racetrack as his campaign headquarters was an illegal campaign
contribution.
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