PAN Faces Possible Loss Sunday in Baja California Stronghold Sandra Dibble - San Diego Union-Tribune
go to original June 28, 2012

Members of Mexico's National Action Party gathered last week in Tijuana for a rally supporting their presidential candidate, Josefina Vázquez Mota.

TIJUANA — It seemed like old times for Mexico’s National Action Party: a chanting crowd, a sea of fluttering blue-and-white flags, a row of candidates waving from a stage in downtown Tijuana one evening last week in support of presidential candidate Josefina Vázquez Mota.

But much has changed for the PAN in Baja California. The party that more than two decades ago helped usher in a new democratic era for Mexico when its voters elected the country’s first opposition governor in modern history in Baja California is now struggling for its place in an uncertain political landscape.

As Mexicans prepare to choose a new president Sunday, the results will set the stage for Baja California’s next political chapter. They will offer a preview of the alignment of forces as the state prepares for the 2013 governor’s race and mayoral contests in all five municipalities.

Voters in this northwest border state of 3.2 million residents have historically shown a fiercely independent streak, sometimes choosing the pro-business PAN and at other times supporting the once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI.

Two independent Baja California polls released in the past week now show the PAN in third place in the presidential contest among the state's voters, echoing the most recent Mexican national polls. Tijuana’s Zeta newsweekly published results last Friday of its poll that put Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in the lead, while Testa Marketing late Wednesday presented results of its poll showing PRI’s Enrique Peña Nieto in first place, slightly ahead of the PRD.

Far from Mexico’s dominant center, Baja California has been influenced politically by strong cross-border ties built through countless family and business connections, trade, tourism and the presence of hundreds of U.S-owned maquiladora factories. Unlike their more conservative and orthodox PANistas brethren in central Mexico, Baja California’s PAN members have been known for their norteño pragmatism.

Read more at The San Diego Union-Tribune

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