New America Media, News Report, Jose Luis Sierra, Posted: Jul 06, 2010

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico— It was a vote of hope, and a vote of punishment.

Some voters here went to the polls Sunday hoping their decisions in state and local elections across Mexico would help counteract high crime, unemployment, and economic stagnation and despair.

Others seemed to be regretting their vote for the governing PAN (National Action Party) almost 10 years ago, amidst hopes for change. Now, these voters seemed to want to punish the governing party of President Felipe Calderon, and return to the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party). Until the 2000 elections, the PRI had governed Mexico for over a half-century.

Despite widespread fear of violent attacks from narcos and under heavy security from local and federal law enforcement officers, about a third of the electorate in Juarez marched to the polls to cast their vote-- more than initially expected.

In some of the states with gubernatorial races, voter participation was higher than 50 percent. These figures are quite high for an election day in Mexico, where the majority of citizens believe voting is a futile act.

The party of President Felipe Calderon, the PAN seems to be heading to a stunning and potentially disastrous defeat. At least nine of the 12 gubernatorial races at stake went to the PRI.

The results signal deep discontent with Calderon and forecast a very difficult future for his party.

In Chihuahua, with 90 percent of the votes counted, the PRI's candidate for governor, Cesar Duarte, handily defeated his PAN opponent, Carlos Borruel, by over 15 percentage points.

In Juarez, one of the Mexican cities most plagued by narco-violence, the PRI's Hector Murguia defeated Cesar Jauregui of the PAN by a 13-point margin.

The state of Chihuahua -- home to  Ciudad Juarez, which is its largest city -- has been governed by the PRI, but Calderon's government had hoped the PAN might win the mayor's race and gain a closer ally in a city that has claimed worldwide attention for its violence.

Mexican voters' rejection of the PAN was motivated by a "lack of confidence in a party that has not been able to deliver on repeated promises to stop the violence,” says Sergio Armendariz, a local political analyst. He attributed the PAN's loss to the fact that just in Ciudad Juarez, violent crime has claimed more than 6,000 victims in the last three years.

However, Armendariz adds that there is little to celebrate for any political party. Most of the fundamental institutions in Mexican society, like the judicial, educational, and public health systems already are collapsing. No matter who is the winner, there seems to be no solution at hand for the crisis.

What is clear is that yesterday’s voting, with elections in a dozen of Mexico's 32 states, became a plebiscite against Calderon’s policies.

In the four years he’s been in power, Calderon's war on drugs has left a trail of 24,000 victims in the country. Hundreds, and perhaps thousands, have been innocent bystanders with no relation to the drug cartels.

Meanwhile, a stagnant economy keeps 60 percent of the country’s population at, or below, the poverty level.

“I am voting for two things,” said Manuel Gutierrez, a truck driver with a local bread factory, as he exited a polling booth in a working class neighborhood of Ciudad Juarez. "First, because I believe that as a Mexican it is my obligation to decide who is going to represent me, and second, because I think that perhaps someone new can really change the way things are going."

“I am voting because I think that voting for the PAN was the worst mistake we Mexicans made," said Guadalupe, a young woman who like many people voting in Juarez agreed to be interviewed but refused to give her full name. "We thought the PRI was bad, was corrupt and incompetent. But look where we are with the PAN… all the killings, no jobs, things get worse and worse."

For the past three years, Juarez as been under the direction of Jose Reyes Ferriz, a PRI mayor who has been heavily criticized locally for moving his residency to El Paso, Texas due to the local violence.

Voters ended up backing Murguia, the PRI candidate, who was once mayor of this city, eventhough many citizens believe he has had some links with drug cartels.

Ironically, several voters said Sunday that his alleged ties to the drug mafias, though never proven, could be an advantage. “When he was mayor he had them under control," said a middle-aged man who declined to give his name.

As in other state and local contests lost by the PAN, the result in Ciudad Juarez is also a blow to President Calderon's agenda.

Calderon based his presidential campaign on an economic platform, touting himself as the “jobs president,” but at the beginning of his mandate he switched gears and declared an open war against the narcos. However, then his government failed to achieve on that front and also has failed to deliver on education, public health and security.

Judging by Sunday’s results, voters seem to be passing him the bill, fed up with the lack of progress.

The chances of the PAN continuing in control of the presidency for another six years have practically evaporated (Mexico will have presidential elections in two years). The PRI now controls over half of Mexico’s states, and the momentum the party has gained in this recent election will make it nearly impossible to beat.

Further, the PRI has solidified its position as an opposition party, and most likely will use this new footing to further debilitate a president that from the very beginning lived under a shadow of illegitimacy, gaining his post with the smallest margin in Mexican electoral history.