From: alopez-o@neumann.waterloo.edu (Alex Lopez-Ortiz)
Subject: Re: More about Mexican elections
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 00:51:19 GMT

In article <1992Jul18.202523.13552@mont.cs.missouri.edu>, imaz%leland.stanford.edu@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu writes:
> The following information was emited by the Democratic Revolution
> Party PRD in Michoacan.
> 
> With the counting of the votes of 91% of the ballots the results are:
> PRD 202,494   PRI 179,396   PAN  22,570  PFCRN 8,591  PARM  5,812 
> PPS   2,422
> 
> The joke in Michoacan is that even with fraud the PRI cannot win.
> They took out more than 400,000 people of the election and they

[a lot more inaccuracies deleted]

For the benefit of people who are interested in the truth and not in
propaganda, here are the results of a poll directed by a newspaper
who is strongly related to the PRD.

[quote translated from spanish]

-On Monday the 6th of July the newspaper "La Jornada" published the result 
of a poll commissioned by this paper. (The elections were held on july
12th). The results are (it is of importance to note that the newspaper
is notoriously  affiliated to the PRD, so if there is any bias it is
in favor of the PRD):

Q: If the elections were held today, For which party would you vote for 
the governorship?

PRI 44% 	PRD 14%		 PAN 3%		 Don't Knoq 22%

The question was asked again in three different ways, as means of statistic
control and confidence (the poll had many other related questions too!).

Q: Which of the different candidates to the governorship of the State is the
best, according to your personal criterion?

PRI 48% 	PRD 15%		 PAN 4%		 Don't Know 17%

Q: Among Eduardo Villasenor and Cristobal Arias, Which one do you consider 
would do the best as a governor?

PRI 54% 	PRD 20%		  Don't know 25%

(Responses were given in ballots deposited in a closed box).

As you can see, people simpatized with the PRI over the PRD in all the 
different questions. And in all of them the PRI is way ahead.

The reasons why the PRI pulled out a victory in the elections in Michoacan
are varied, here are the most important ones:

-The success of Salinas' economic policies. Approx. 92% of the polled people
believe Salinas has been a good or regular president (64% good, 28% regular.
Similar statistics hold all over the country).

-The success of the program "Solidarity", by which the government gives,
no question asked, the material required for infrastructure construction
(like water, electricity and paving) if the beneficiaries provide the manual
labor. About 69% of the interviewed has noticed or benefited by the the
solidarity program. Direct beneficiaries 41%, noticed benefits 28%.
Only 21% declared to have perceived no benefits at all.

-The large amounts of money spent by the PRI in the electoral campaign. Estimates
for expenses vary from 10 million dollars to 32M dlls. This is an enormous
amount of money in a state with less than 3M inhabitants with an average
salary of less than $300 a month.

-Finally, the most important reason is that the leader of the PRD, Cuauhtemoc 
Cardenas is a former governor of the state (he was the PRI candidate at the
time). People in Michoacan know him and his terrible policies very well. As
an example we have his interventions in the University of Michoacan, where 
he repudiated the legally elected president of the university, and,
violating its internal law, chose a new president. For over 2 months the
university was paralized and had three presidents. Another example: A
Prohibition Law for drinking on sundays even in the privacy of your own 
home. It was well known that even in Cuauhtemoc house, the sunday parties
which were thrown regularly by Cuauhtemoc for his friends and paid with
government funds had coke "with or without lemon" (with or without rum).


The PRI is guilty of many sins, but this time they won, with or without 
the alledged fraud. The PRI knows so well that they won that it has called 
for a public comparison of the list of counted votes.

The PRD has accepted the challenge but it is now dragging its feet in the
discussions about when and where to hold them (in fairness to truth I
must say the PRI hasn't been very pressing either, but the point is,
if the PRD had won they wouldn't be dragging their feet).


Please disregard the biased propaganda of PRD's mouthpiece Carlos Imaz.


Alex Lopez-Ortiz

Disclaimer: I'm not and I have never been a member of the PRI, and I 
have been an active member of activist leftist organizations in Mexico.


-- 
Alex Lopez-Ortiz                              alopez-o@maytag.UWaterloo.ca
Deparment of Computer Science                       University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario                                                   Canada
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