Campaign Winds Down in Historic Mexican Election : Politics: Three-day hiatus before balloting gives voters time to decide between ruling party and promised change.

CHIHUAHUA, Mexico —  The election campaign that could end the dominance of the world’s longest-ruling party wrapped up Wednesday, leaving Mexicans a three-day hiatus to consider whether to vote Sunday for change.

Candidates shook hands at street corners and exhorted followers at rallies in a final attempt to firm the convictions of supporters and sway the undecided before, by law, they had to stop campaigning.

But Mexicans could base their votes less on rhetoric than on performance.

They know what to expect from the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The opposition’s only track record is the experience of Chihuahua, Baja California and Guanajuato--three states with governors from the conservative National Action Party (PAN).

Whether voters believe that those state governments have improved conditions could be a decisive factor in their willingness to vote for the opposition.

Politicians consider that factor seriously enough that PAN and PRI legislative delegations in Baja California have taken out competing full-page advertisements in national weekly newsmagazines in the month leading up to the elections; the ads either tout or disparage the PAN administration in the state.

Salvador Beltran del Rio, PAN candidate for the National Congress here, promised supporters: “Our state is today an example of democracy and authentic separation of powers, where the legislature is truly independent. As a federal deputy, I will work to make this the reality in all Mexico.”

The candidate with the most riding on the PAN’s record is party standard-bearer Diego Fernandez de Cevallos.

Fernandez--who has risen to No. 2 in most polls, edging out Cuauhtemoc Cardenas of the left-leaning Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD)--is generally thought to have the best chance of defeating Ernesto Zedillo, the leading candidate, and ending 65 years of PRI rule.

If he succeeds, Mexicans will turn north to see what a PAN government might look like. While Carlos Medina, governor of the central state of Guanajuato, is a caretaker--the result of a political compromise after an election fraught with documented fraud--the governors of Baja California and Chihuahua swept into office with clear mandates for change. They pledged to bring democracy to their states.

In Chihuahua, where Francisco Barrio Terraza was elected in 1992 to the governorship that many Mexicans believe was stolen from him by fraud six years earlier, the PAN-dominated legislature is rewriting the state constitution to include referendums.

“Before, 80% of the initiatives for new laws came from the governor and only 20% from the state Congress,” said Luis H. Alvarez, former national chairman of the PAN and now a candidate for the federal Senate from Chihuahua. “Now, it is reversed.”

Ernesto Ruffo Appel, the first PAN governor in Baja California, created one of this nation’s earliest, most powerful human rights commissions and a pioneering electoral reform package: The state wrested control of its electoral rolls from the federal government and introduced a high-tech photographic identification card for voters. That anti-corruption tool has become the model for the voter credential now used in Mexican federal elections.

“The fact that the cleanest elections anywhere in Mexico today are happening in Baja California is a tremendous tribute to Ruffo and his government,” said Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies at UC San Diego.

Carlos Castillo Peraza, national president of the PAN, contends that the three PAN governors have given Mexico examples of clean, efficient public administration. “There is a new climate of confidence in government,” he said.

But he may be overstating the case. Voters may not be so impressed with PAN state governments that they are eagerly awaiting the chance to elect candidates who will expand reforms nationwide.

Still, recent events--including a bloody Indian revolt in the poor southern state of Chiapas--attest to the fact that Mexicans are impatient for change and that they will demand much more accountability from the next government.

“Even those people who will vote for the PRI want change, and it’s a message the PRI has understood,” said Jonathan Heath, president of Mexico City consulting firm Macro Asesoria Economica.

“The old order no longer satisfies the vast majority, although no one can know with certainty which party platform provides the solution to the current difficulties,” said Luis Rubio, director of the Center for Development Research, a private think tank.

A national poll by Washington, D.C.-based Belden & Russonello showed no significant difference in Fernandez’s support in PAN-governed states compared with the nation as a whole. A recent poll by the independent weekly Zeta showed Zedillo leading with 43% of the vote in Baja compared to 25% for Fernandez. Internal PAN polls tell a different story, Alvarez contended. But those numbers are not public.

Analysts note that being an incumbent has its disadvantages and that PAN state administrations have shown flaws.

The PAN’s popularity in Baja suffers because of the inevitable hardships and disillusionment that come with holding office, said Tonatiuh Guillen Lopez, a political scientist at Tijuana’s College of the Northern Border.

“Baja California is by no means a fortress of the PAN,” Guillen said. “This remains an important national source of votes for the PAN, but the party is in a much more fragile position here than it was in 1989” when it took power.

City and state leaders have been handicapped by inexperience, internal squabbles and an attitude toward power that verges on the old authoritarianism, critics say.

Guillen cited a proposal by Tijuana’s mayor for a comprehensive, locally funded public works initiative--an innovative concept developed with the aid of enthusiastic World Bank consultants. Although Guillen praises the plan itself, he said it was presented to voters as a fait accompli and, therefore, ran into resistance.

The PAN has encountered similar problems in Chihuahua, said Leonel Reyes Castro, a PRI federal deputy from Chihuahua. “They have been very clumsy in presenting their program. They have not been able to win over either the other parties or the citizenry.”

In Chihuahua, Barrio’s authoritarian record as mayor of Ciudad Juarez from 1983 to 1986 had worried some observers. Guillen said the often violent, controversial responses by police--acting under Barrio’s orders--to street protests and sit-ins by neighborhood activists, teachers and students were “intolerant, repressive and, finally, undemocratic.”

But he said Barrio’s political persona has become more moderate since he ran for governor. “The Barrio who was in Juarez bears little resemblance to the Barrio who is now in the state government. He now is practically a liberal.”

The biggest problems Barrio has faced as governor have been financial, starting with a $233-million debt left by the previous, PRI-run administration.

The debt was supposed to be paid with highway tolls. But traffic projections were optimistic, and toll income has run 40% below expectations.

Combined with an insolvent pension fund and medical plan for state workers and restrictions on state powers to tax, the debt has left Mexico’s largest state with a budget that is impossible to balance.

Neophyte opposition leaders in both Chihuahua and Baja California also have been battered by a frightening onslaught of narcotics-related violence, common in many Mexican states.

Chihuahua’s rugged, inaccessible mountains have long been a favored area for cultivating marijuana and dropping off stronger drugs for transport across the border to Texas.

Tijuana’s geographical value in the international drug trade has made the city a stage for brazen murders, shootouts and high-level police scandals. The bloodshed reached unprecedented heights this year with the assassinations of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio and of the Tijuana police chief--crimes blamed on the mix of drugs and political corruption.

Opponents say crime has surged to anarchic levels; the tense security around the Baja governor and Tijuana mayor seems to symbolize a government under siege. PAN officials retort that drug violence is a problem that requires national and international solutions.

Thus, once in office, PAN leaders find themselves bogged down in the same problems that their PRI predecessors faced, making it difficult to accomplish all that they promised. “The PAN’s platform was change,” Reyes Castro said. “I have not seen a great deal of change. It’s been mainly personal style.”

For example, he said, licenses are issued more quickly since the Barrio administration automated the state’s data processing systems. But they cost more.

The structure of public spending has not changed much either, he said. But much of the state budget is from federal revenue-sharing and must be spent on mandated programs, such as schools.

On the other hand, Reyes Castro said Barrio and his administration have made no major gaffes, which is about the evaluation offered by other residents of the state capital.

“They have run the government well,” said Ever Fauda, 22, a college student. “They have denounced corruption and improved the flow of traffic. But I am not going to vote based on a party, but on the candidate. I will probably decide on election day.”

Darling reported from Chihuahua and Rotella from Tijuana.

Issues at Hand

The key issues Mexico’s elections.

CLEAN AND FAIR ELECTIONS: Both the government and civil groups have made unprecedented efforts to promote clean elections. But with a long history of vote fraud, many Mexicans may not even bother to go to the polls. One recent opinion poll showed that 53.6% believe the elections will be irregular, unclear or fraudulent.

PEACE: Some have warned that massive civil protest could ensue if there is any appearance of fraud in the elections.

CHIAPAS: The armed Indian peasants in southern Chiapas State say they will refuse to recognize a PRI victory. Currently observing a cease- fire, they have threatened to resume hostilities if the elections are unfair.

DEMAND FOR CHANGE: After 65 years of rule by the PRI, many Mexicans are demanding change, giving strength to the opposition and forcing promises of a major restructuring from the ruling party.

STABILITY: Several independent pollsters concluded that many Mexicans feel the best choice for political and economic stability is to stay with the PRI; a change right now could be disasterous, they argue. The opposition says it can provide stability, too.

ECONOMY: Short term challenges are to keep the peso stable and prevent capital flight. Mexicans hope their economy will pick up after the elections put political uncertainty to rest.

Researched by SUSAN DRUMMET / Los Angeles Times