Mexico’s conservative National Action Party holds second round of presidential primary
Mexico’s ruling National Action Party held the second stage of its presidential primary elections on Sunday, with party members in eight southern states choosing between three candidates for the nomination.
Former energy secretary Felipe Calderon won a surprise victory in the first of three primary elections on Sept. 11, but former interior secretary Santiago Creel has pressed hard to try to recoup what was long seen as his favorite status.
A third former member of President Vicente Fox’s cabinet, former environment secretary Alberto Cardenas – who ran a distant third in the Sept. 11 vote in northern Mexico – is also vying for the nomination of the party, known as the PAN.
“We believe this is an exemplary, democratic and transparent process, like that of no other party,” said PAN president Manuel Espino.
The vote Sunday was held in the states from Yucatan to Veracruz.
Creel had led preferences among party members for months. But Calderon has steadily gained ground in opinion polls and performed well in a nationally televised debate.
President Vicente Fox, the first PAN member ever elected to the presidency, is prohibited by law from seeking a second term in the July 2006 election.
A former congressman and PAN president, Calderon resigned as energy secretary in May 2004 after Fox criticized him for an early jump into the presidential race.
Calderon has proposed to extend Fox’s success on economic stability, while improving on law enforcement and creating a coalition-style government if the PAN fails to win control of Congress. He ran unsuccessfully for governor in his home state of Michoacan in 1995.
Members of the center-right PAN will vote in a third round encompassing the remaining northern and western states of Mexico’s 31 states on Oct. 23. An estimated 1.1 million party members were eligible to participate in the three PAN primary elections.
If no candidate obtains 50 percent plus one vote in the first phase a second round will be held Nov. 6 between the top two contenders.
The voting kicked off the primary season among Mexico’s three major political parties, which must register their candidates by January. The leftist Democratic Revolution Party is expected to nominate former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who leads all polls ahead of the presidential election.
Two people were seeking the candidacy of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Former Mexico state governor Arturo Montiel and former PRI party president Roberto Madrazo were also scheduled to face off in a primary election.
During 71 years of uninterrupted power – which ended with Fox’s historic victory in 2000 – the presidents from the PRI hand-picked their successors behind closed doors and the party conducted elections often marred by fraud.
Source: signonsandiego.com
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