Mexico vote reflects on president

MORELIA, Mexico – Mexicans voted in the western state of Michoacán in a crucial political test Sunday for President Felipe Calderon in his home state, where his sister sought the governor’s post.

Voters also were electing 40 federal congressional representatives and 112 mayors following dozens of drug cartel-related attacks over the past two years targeting local officials in the state.

The vote count was going very slowly Sunday night. With less than 4 percent of the polling stations reporting, the governor’s race was a dead heat.

The election was being watched as an indicator for Mexico’s presidential election next year, for which opinion polls have been indicating that Calderon’s conservative National Action Party, or PAN, will struggle to retain the presidency.

The vote results also would reflect more clearly on the president, whose sister, Luisa Maria “Cocoa” Calderon, ran for the governorship in the family’s home state where the president launched his offensive against drug cartels in late 2006.

Luisa Maria Calderon promised to advance her brother’s anti-drug campaign and led in most opinion polls going into the vote, the last state election before the presidential contest in July.

Jesus Zambrano Grijalvo, president of the leftist Revolutionary Democratic Party, or PRD, said his party sympathizers in a mountainous zone plagued by drug violence were being intimidated by organized crime gangs and pressured not to vote. Zambrano did not go into details at a news conference Sunday.

In the city of La Piedad, a local newspaper published on Sunday an unsigned note blaming the PAN for drug killings and threatening the party’s supporters. News reports said the newspaper had been forced to publish the warning.

“Don’t wear T-shirts or PAN advertising because we don’t want to confuse you and have innocent people die,” read the note, which was also circulated by email.

It was not immediately clear who sent the email or published the newspaper ad, which came 11 days after La Piedad Mayor Ricardo Guzman was shot dead while handing out leaflets for several PAN candidates, including Luisa Maria Calderon. No arrests have been made in the attack.