SONORA PRI AND PAN PARTIES PREPARE FOR 2006 ELECTIONS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HERMOSILLO 000029 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR WHA/MEX, EMBASSY MEXICO FOR MCCA, POL E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PHUM MX SUBJECT: SONORA PRI AND PAN PARTIES PREPARE FOR 2006 ELECTIONS HERMOSILLO 00000029 001.2 OF 002 ¶1. (SBU) Summary. Electoral politics are beginning to grab the local headlines in Sonora. In a state where the National Action Party (PAN) is strongest, Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) Governor Bours has visibly asserted his local political identity and independence from the PRI national presidential candidate Robert Madrazo. He is backing an initiative with the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) to ensure local control over selection of PRI candidates for Sonora electoral contests. The Sonora PAN party also is maneuvering to dominate the selection of its candidates for key local campaigns rather than take direction from the national party. Internal PAN friction over the candidate for mayor of Hermosillo, the capital, is especially intense. Sonora PAN leaders say they are open to cooperation with the The Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) to thwart a Madrazo victory and return of PRI to the presidency. End Summary. GOVERNOR BOURS AND PRI POLITICS IN SONORA ¶2. (U) Jockeying for position in the July 2 Mexican national elections is well underway in Sonora. Governor Eduardo Bours Castelo, elected in 2000 as a member of PRI, has not endorsed the PRI's 2006 presidential candidate, Roberto Madrazo. He also, characteristically, is asserting his independence from the national PRI party leadership by strongly supporting the efforts of the Sonora PRI party to gain local control over selection of the PRI candidates for Sonora's federal deputy and senator positions. This effort is in the form of a challenge in IFE to the validity of the national-level PRI coalition with the Green Ecology Party (PVEM). Although no decision has been made on the final formula for candidate selection, local media are portraying the Sonora PRI's initiative as moving ahead after IFE agreed on January 10 to refer its complaint to the Electoral Tribunal of Judicial Power (Tepjf). ¶3. (U) The Sonora PRI challenge attacks a national-level PRI-PVEM agreement to cooperate in the election campaign (reportedly, inter alia, on selection of candidates) as "anti-democratic and centralist." Governor Bours' role is consistent with his long-time political projection of himself as a leader of a "PRI of Change" or the "New PRI." However, some Hermosillo political observers explain the maneuver as the latest manifestation of a decades-old political rivalry between Bours and Manlio Fabio Beltrones. Beltrones, who was PRI state governor in 1991-96, currently represents the interests of PRI's Madrazo faction in Sonora. ¶4. (U) Governor Bours set off speculation -- which is still reverberating locally -- that he might even break with PRI when he met January 10 in Mexico City with Josefina Vasquez Mota, the political coordinator for PAN presidential candidate Felipe Calderon. But the Governor has strongly denied that is his intention. He has said that Vasquez Mota is an old friend and they simply discussed the importance of clean elections and the need for continuing political reform in Mexico. MANAGING PAN SONORA INTERNAL PARTY TENSIONS ¶5. (U) Different factions of National Action Party (PAN) in Sonora are also engaged in fierce competition for control over the selection of local PAN candidates, especially who will stand for PAN in the contest for mayor of Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora. Mayor Maria Dolores del Rio, the PAN incumbent, has united her supporters behind the "pre-candidacy" of Rodolfo Flores Hurtado, who works with her in city hall. Flores Hurtado faces internal PAN competition from Javier Gandara Magana, a prominent and wealthy agricultural exporter, who switched from PRI to PAN in a failed attempt to become Hermosillo mayor in ¶2003. Gandara Magana has the backing of Manuel Espino Barrientos, the PAN national leader. ¶6. (SBU) PAN Sonora party officials Enrique Reina Lizarraga ( State Leader) and Irma Romo Salazar (Secretary General) recently told PO that they are trying to keep the Flores Hurtado-Gandara Magana competition from weakening local party unity (although they indicated that Flores Hurtado would be their preferred candidate). PAN is very strong in Sonora and currently holds 11 (of 31) seats in the Sonora State Congress, and 23 (of 72) mayoralties throughout the state, including Hermosillo. At the Federal level, the two elected senators from Sonora are from PAN. Sonora has 7 (of 300) elected deputies in the National Congress of Deputies. Three of those federal deputies from Sonora are PANistas. ¶7. (SBU) Romo Salazar said she expects PAN to achieve similar support in Sonora in 2006, although she expressed continuing concern about the negative influence of Jorge Humberto Valencia Valencia, a PRI supporter and President of Sonora's State Electoral Council (CEE) on a clean vote count (Reftel). She HERMOSILLO 00000029 002.2 OF 002 said that the 2006 campaign in Sonora would be a tough one, even under the best of conditions, noting that the organizations with the most extensive networks in the state are still CocaCola, the Church, and PRI. The PRD, she said, could do well in 2006 in southern Sonora, a generally poorer portion of the state, and draw votes from PRI. SONORA PAN LEADERS' VIEWS ON THE NATIONAL RACE ¶8. (SBU) The Sonora PAN leaders were enthusiastic about Felipe Calderon, their party's presidential candidate, but said that the main objective on the national level is to keep Madrazo and the PRI from the presidency. A Madrazo win, they said, would result in a setback to democratic gains for the whole country. They said that PAN and the PRD could cooperate to block that outcome. Interestingly, they commented that PRD presidential hopeful Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO),despite his leftist and sometimes anti-American rhetoric, is actually more moderate and could be expected to act "responsibly" as president if he won. CLARKE