Global Exchange
October 9, 2001

In local Chiapas elections this Sunday October 7 the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) retained its dominance in the municipal governments and State Congress, followed by the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and the National Action Party (PAN). Estimates of abstention have reached as high as 60% of the population, the highest in the country, and there have been conflicting reports in local newspapers regarding electoral irregularities and violence. While the PRI did lose 16 of the municipalities it currently holds, including important municipalities such as San Cristóbal de las Casas, Las Margaritas, Villa Corzo and Tonalá, it retained the majority in the State Congress, the most critical outcome of the elections. In a significant victory for the National Action Party, Victoria Rincon Carrillo has secured the mayor's office of the capital city of Tuxtla Gutierrez, the first woman to ever hold that position--though opposition candidates are challenging her victory and demanding a recount. Enoch Hernandez, the little-known non-native candidate for the Social Alliance Party (PAS), has won the mayor's race in San Cristóbal de las Casas in a surprising rebuke of PRI dominance.

The State Electoral Institute and Governor Pablo Salazar Mendiguchia maintain that the elections were carried out without violence or abnormalities, but there are reports in the press which contradict this position. Specifically, according to the magazine Proceso, in the municipalities of Ocosingo, Soyaló, Solosuchiapa y Tapalapa less than half of the voting booths had been installed. Also, three people were killed in incidents which appear to be related to electoral violence in municipalities of Chilón and Sabanilla, though as of press time the motives of the assaults have not been confirmed. our electoral officials were attacked, hundreds of ballots burned, and the offices of the State Electoral Institute sacked when 500 militants from four different parties, including the PRD and the PAN, protested alleged PRI electoral fraud in the municipality of Independencia near the Guatemalan border. The mayor of the municipality of Chenalhó, Antontio Arias Pérez, reported the existence of bands of masked armed men in the area of Tzanenbolóm Saturday night and requested the presence of State Police to accompany voters to the polls on Sunday. In the municipality of Tzimol three men were arrested for vote buying and electoral fraud in favor of PRI candidates.

According to the news agency Notimex, the PRI has won 72 municipalities, the PRD 19, the PAN 11, the Green Party (PVEM) 4, the PAS 2 (San Cristóbal y Tuxtla Chico) and the Labor Party (PT) 2. PT-PRD alliances have won 5 municipalities, and PRD-PVEM alliance has won one municipality. Currently, the PRI governs 88 municipalities, the PRD 17, the PAN 6 and the seven new municipalities created in 1999 are governed by plural councils. The PRI has won 21 of 24 districts up for election, the PRD 2 and the PAN one. Of the 40 districts, 26 are currently PRI, 5 are PRD, 5 are PAN, 1 is PT, 1 is Citizen Advancement Party, and 2 are independent.