Mixed results in Mexico voting

Toluca, Mexico The party that governed Mexico for seven decades won a crushing victory Sunday in the most important state race before next year’s presidential elections. But another state vote was closer than expected.

Victory in big Mexico State bolsters the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, but it does not guarantee a return to the presidency the party lost in 2000: Its potential candidates all trail Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in the polls.

With 73 percent of the vote counted, the PRI’s Enrique Pena Nieto had 47 percent to 25 percent for Ruben Mendoza of President Vicente Fox’s National Action Party and 24 percent for Yeidckol Polevnsky of Lopez Obrador’s Democratic Revolution Party.

“It was a clear and strong victory,” Pena Nieto said in a victory speech. He praised Mendoza for telephoning to concede defeat. But Polevnsky vowed to challenge the election before the courts, alleging the PRI overshot legal spending limits.

While the PRI celebrated in Mexico State, it was in unexpected danger in the small western state of Nayarit, where pre-election polls showed the PRI with a double-digit lead to recapture a state it lost six years ago.

Both the PRI and Democratic Revolution said their own exit polls Sunday showed they had won. Independent exit polls by the two television networks showed the race too close to call.

Jordanian militants’ convictions upheld

Amman, Jordan A military court on Sunday upheld the convictions of eight Jordanian militants for possessing explosives, and officials said a man considered the spiritual mentor of terror mastermind Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi was freed last week.

The eight were among 11 militants charged with possessing explosives and conspiring to commit terrorist acts against the U.S. Embassy in Amman and Jordanian military bases near the eastern Iraqi border.

The 11 men, including three Saudis tried in absentia, were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 7 1/2 to 15 years for possessing explosives in a trial that ended Dec. 27, 2004. They were acquitted of the conspiracy charge for lack of evidence.

On Sunday, the military judges upheld the verdicts against the Jordanians.

In a related development, Isam al-Barqawi, a man considered the mentor of al-Zarqawi, the chief of al Qaeda in Iraq, was freed from jail on Tuesday, government officials said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.