Mexico Presidential Run to Begin in Ensenada Sandra Dibble - San Diego Union-Tribune
go to original March 16, 2012

SAN DIEGO — The presidential candidate for Mexico’s ruling National Action Party, also known as the PAN, plans to launch her campaign this month from Baja California — the state that gave her party its first gubernatorial victory more than two decades ago.

During a talk Thursday at the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, Ernesto Ruffo Appel, a Mexican senatorial candidate and a top adviser to PAN presidential candidate Josefina Vázquez Mota, said he is helping to organize her March 30 kickoff rally in Ensenada.

Ruffo has been a key figure in Mexican politics since his 1989 gubernatorial victory in Baja California, an event that helped break the grip on Mexican politics of the once-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI.

Vázquez currently trails 10 percentage points behind the PRI presidential candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, who is favored to win the July 1 election. Ruffo said the possibility of a PRI presidential victory persuaded him to re-enter politics.

“I said, ‘No way, José. I’ve got to do something,’” said Ruffo, addressing the audience at USD. Ruffo said the PRI hasn’t changed despite its claims of renewal. “They’re not democratic, they don’t have internal elections. It’s simply the old story, with a babyface dinosaur.”

Ruffo said President Felipe Calderón, a PAN member, was forced to fight drug traffickers.

“He had no option. The presidential office was nearly taken by the bad guys.” But Ruffo called for a “new paradigm” that would involve Mexican families — with government support — focusing on prevention of crime and drug abuse.

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