New Style of Mexican Vote Fraud Alleged : Politics: Critics say ruling party suspended an election in Yucatan it was afraid of losing. Governor insists PRI had nothing to do with decision.

MERIDA, Mexico —  Mexican governments have often been accused of stealing elections that they did not win. Now, opposition parties charge that President Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s administration has switched tactics and simply suspended an election it was afraid of losing.

Last week, on short notice and with scant public discussion, the legislature in Yucatan, dominated by the ruling party, changed the state constitution to postpone November’s scheduled gubernatorial election for 1 1/2 years. The legislature is to appoint an interim governor.

Opposition parties accuse Salinas’ federal government of orchestrating the move. Critics say it is further proof that, while Salinas wants economic reform, he is unwilling to advance democracy in this country.

“Who is going to believe in the seriousness of a country” when Mexico’s major decisions depend “on the big chief?” asked columnist Federico Reyes Heroles in Mexico City’s El Financiero newspaper.

The original election date would have fallen about the time Salinas will be choosing the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party’s candidate for president and officially kicking off the campaign for next year’s national elections. Critics say Salinas did not want to risk losing another Statehouse in advance of federal elections--sending a possible message of opposition strength--or to face a messy confrontation in the event of a contested victory by the PRI, as the official party is called.

The conservative National Action Party, which had a good chance of winning November’s election in Yucatan and has been a steady opposition to Salinas, protested the move by pulling out of negotiations with the government to reform federal election laws.

“We are always surprised by the arbitrariness of the central government,” said Merida’s popular mayor, Ana Rosa Payan, who was expected to be National Action’s candidate for governor. “They think we still live on a ranch down here. I am not sure what Salinas wants except, apparently, for the will of one person to prevail.”

Payan said the PRI meant to weaken her by putting off the election until long after her term as mayor expires.

Yucatan Gov. Dulce Maria Sauri, a PRI stalwart and Payan’s political nemesis, insists that the federal government had nothing to do with the state’s decision to put off the vote. After first pooh-poohing the controversy, Sauri this week offered a compromise proposal to hold elections in November for an 18-month term, rather than the usual six years.

Sauri said Yucatan citizens have long wanted to change their gubernatorial election date, which has always fallen toward the end of the president’s six-year term. It’s preferable, she said, to have a new governor take office after the new president does so that the governor has a full six years to carry out federally funded projects.

Presidents in Mexico--all have been PRI members for the last 62 years--traditionally pick the party’s gubernatorial candidates, and PRI governors serve as virtual presidential viceroys. In return for their governors’ loyalty, states are rewarded with federal projects.

For decades, opposition parties accused the PRI federal government of stealing elections in such states as Baja California, Chihuahua and Yucatan, where National Action is strong. Soon after taking office, Salinas recognized the first opposition governor’s victory in PRI history. This occurred in Baja California, where National Action’s Ernesto Ruffo Appel took the Statehouse.

Last year, Salinas recognized a National Action victory in Chihuahua’s gubernatorial election. But his administration denied charges of fraud and opposition victory claims in Statehouse races in San Luis Potosi, Guanajuato, Michoacan and Guerrero.

Vigorous protests forced Salinas to install interim governors from PRI in San Luis Potosi and Michoacan and from National Action in Guanajuato.

Unlike many other states, Yucatan has a long history of political opposition to the ruling party, and a strong, independent newspaper has flourished here since 1925. National Action gained a foothold in the steamy Caribbean state almost from the date of its founding in the 1940s--a conservative backlash to the ruling party’s populist agrarian reform program.

National Action won the mayor’s post in Merida, the state capital, in 1967. Two years later, the mayor ran for governor and claimed victory, but the PRI candidate was declared the winner.

Payan was elected mayor here in November, 1990, but the PRI claimed victory then too. After National Action took to the streets in protest, the government backed down and Payan took office in January, 1991. But PRI Gov. Victor Manzanilla Schaffer lost his job over the controversy, and Sauri was named to replace him.

The Yucatan legislature began discussing new state election laws last October, but during months of debate it never publicly discussed changing the gubernatorial election date. On April 2, the legislature approved a new election code that made no change in the date.

Four days later, four PRI deputies published an ad in the independent Diario de Yucatan denying reports they had proposed moving the election and calling the idea “unnecessary” and “not in keeping with the feelings of Yucatecos.”

On April 17, PRI officials from Mexico City flew to Merida and met at the airport for eight hours with the governor and state PRI leaders. Two days later, PRI legislators introduced a measure to postpone the election date, leading to immediate charges that the decision came from Mexico City.

After the measure was taken up and quickly approved last Friday, Payan called a snap referendum, asking Merida voters if they agreed with the decision. About 95% of the 42,000 citizens who voted said “no.”

PRI officials accuse Payan of using public money for partisan purposes and say that they doubt that many people really cast ballots.

Since then, the political temperature has continued to rise. Competing local newspapers have published editorials, one of them attacking the mayor’s upbringing and personal life and the other assailing the governor’s husband and her “virtual coup d’etat. “