The Battalion
Tuesday "July8,
Tm
Elections held in Mexico
Incomplete results point to division of power
U.S. counters NATO
expansion efforts
MEXICO CITY (AP) — In an electoral revolution it
brought on itself through democratic reforms, Mexi
co’s ruling party has lost its decades-long monopoly
on power and faces a new challenge: sharing power
with an opposition.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, was
punished Sunday by voters fed up with economic cri
sis and the last vestiges of an authoritarian system.
Incomplete results Monday showed the PRI losing
the Mexico City mayorship to veteran opposition politi
cian Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, losing at least two of six
governor’s races and, most importantly, its long, un
questioned lock on Congress. President Ernesto Zedil
lo may become the first Mexican president since 1913
to face an opposition legislature.
That means cooperation must replace the bullying
and arm-twisting that has worked since PRI’s founding
68 years ago.
The kind of rubberstamp congressional vote that
ensured approval of President Carlos Salinas de Gor-
tari’s North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993
is likely a thing of the past. However, it was still too
early to predict how the new Congress would work
with the president on such controversial issues as free
trade and anti-drug policy.
“The rules of the game have changed,” said a lead
ing political commentator, Sergio Sarmiento. “The rul
ing party must learn how to negotiate to survive.”
The PRI will continue to wield enormous power. “It
will still be the leading party in Mexico,” Sarmiento said.
Despite the uncertainties, the vote was generally
viewed as positive in both Mexico and abroad. Investors
reacted favorably Monday in Mexico, where the peso
strengthened and the stock market rose.
Born out of the ashes of the Mexican Revolution, the
PRI was created in 1929 to unite feuding generals and
bring peace to a country torn by fighting that killed 1
million people. For many years it provided the stabili
ty that allowed Mexico to rebuild its devastated econo
my and political system.
The PRI built a broad power base supported by the
army, labor, peasants, and public employees. But in the
past decade, it began to crumble when the government
sold off hundreds of state enterprises, labor and peas
ant organizations lost their clout and economic crisis
drove former party stalwarts to the opposition.
Former president Salinas, the PRI candidate elected
in 1988 in balloting marred by widespread fraud,
pushed through the first major reforms that chipped
away the party’s hold on power.
His successor, Zedillo, passed even more.
The PRI sought Sunday to cast its most brutal elec
toral loss ever as an important democratic advance.
Zedillo’s reforms “have passed their first test very sat
isfactorily,” said ruling party national leader Humber
to Roque. Even with the reforms, “the PRI has come out
ahead in this electoral process,” he insisted.
With more than 85 percent of ballots counted Mon
day for the lower house of Congress, the PRI had near
ly 39 percent of the vote compared with 27 percent for
the center-right National Action Party and almost 26
percent for Cardenas’ left-center Democratic Revolu
tion Party. Five other parties divided the rest.
A party needs at least 42 percent of the vote to win a
majority in the lower house. Of the 500 seats, 300 are di
rectly elected and 200 are allotted proportionally.
The last time a Mexican president faced a hostile
Congress was during the Mexican revolution. Gen.Vic-
torino Huerta staged a military coup and killed Presi
dent Francisco Madero in 1913, dissolving the pro-
Madero Congress a few months later.
In other races Sunday, Cardenas became the capi
tal’s first elected mayor since 1928. Previously, the post
was appointed by the president.
a Mexico
elections
Results as of 10 am. EDT
PRI institutional Revolutionary Party
PAN National Action Party
%£prd Democratic Revolution Party
CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES
79.2 percent of the vote counted
PRI 38.1%
27.4%
25.9%
SENATE
79.31 percent of the vote counted
PRI 37.51%
27.66%
26.02%
MEXICO CITY MAYOR
79.7 percent of the vote counted
BjO'cPRD
'/io
47.7%
PRI 25.51%
16.06%
Conflicts abound during Northern Ireland’s ‘marching season’
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BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — Even as fresh conflicts
brewed Monday night, police were summing up the vio
lence to date in Northern Ireland’s “marching season.”
More than 100 civilians and police wounded.
About 250 cars burned.
Some 700 gasoline bombs thrown at police.
More than 1,600 plastic bullets fired back by police.
Rampages began Sunday after police and soldiers
clubbed Catholic protesters out of a Protestant parade route
through the main Catholic neighborhood in Portadown. The
rioting wounded hopes for a new IRA cease-fire and a wider
peace settlement pursued by new British and Irish leaders.
All the numbers were certain to rise with Catholic fury
flowing unabated at the start of Northern Ireland’s annual
“marching season.”
The Orange Order — the largest Protestant organiza
tion — was mounting hundreds of parades through the
week, climaxing Saturday with the 307th anniversary of
Protestant King William of Orange’s defeat of the de
throned Catholic King James II.
Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam approved the
heavy-handed military operation on Portadown’s Garvaghy
Road, which kept the area’s 3,000 residents locked in behind
more than 100 armored cars and 1,500 riot police and troops.
On Monday, she called it “the least worst option” to enable
Orangemen to parade through the area quickly and quietly.
She said Protestants would have caused widespread may
hem if the Orangemen had been blocked, and some might
have killed Catholic civilians, as happened last year when po
lice tried to block the same march.
Instead, amid the rioting in Catholic areas throughout
Northern Ireland, the IRA and a smaller paramilitary group,
MADRID, Spain (AP) — The
United States fought off efforts by
a majority of its European allies
Monday to nominate more than
three East European countries for
NATO membership in the first
phase of an enlargement.
President Clinton also planned
to ask allied leaders to get tough
on Bosnian Serb wartime leader
Radovan Karadzic, who has oper
ated freely in the nearly two years
since the Dayton peace agree
ment. Karadzic has been indicted
for war crimes for his role in
Bosnia’s 3 1 /2-year war.
U.S. Secretaiy of State Madeleine
Albright said the two-day NATO
summit starting here Tuesday
would discuss “possible coordinat
ed action” against Karadzic, who has
been trying to retake power from
Biljana Plavsic, president of the
Bosnian-Serb sub-state.
“We will help those who help
Dayton and isolate those who op
pose the peace Dayton would
provide,” Albright said.
Tens of thousands of NATO-led
troops have been in Bosnia since
December 1995, but alliance offi
cials repeatedly have said their
mission does not include seeking
out war crimes suspects.
Clinton arrived Monday after
noon from a weekend holiday on
the Mediterranean island of Mal
lorca and was scheduled to meet
privately with NATO Secretary-
General Javier Solana and Prime
Minister Jose Maria Aznar.
The Madrid summit was called
to begin enlarging the 16-nation
defense alliance and deal with
other issues of modernizing
NATO. Chief among the problems
was deciding just how many new
members to bring in.
Top alliance officials sched
uled a late-night meeting to work
out as many of the remaining
problems as possible before the
presidents and prime ministers
gather Tuesday morning.
Poland, Hungary and the Czech
Republic were certain to get invita
tions to begin negotiations on be
coming members of NATO. The
United States, backed by
and five other countries, Sc
enough. France and Italy led
group of nine that favor also adi
Romania and Slovenia.
The United States seemedst:
to prevail, though at the expeo
of ruffling more than a few
feathers. The French, well awa
they can’t win a face-offwithtl
Americans, were trying to pus
through a statement namingRi
mania and Slovenia as tliene
countries invited and settingspe
cific dates for that.
“We have to be quite
plined in making judgmentsaboa
who should come in to membei-
ship of NATO, and 1 think they (Rn
mania and Slovenia) shouldgt
consideration. I just don’t thinij
this time they should be adit:
ted,” Clinton said.
Washington never has clearh a
plained what criteria Romaniaanl
Slovenia have failed to meet, buth*
insisted Poland, Hungary and dif
Czech Republic will not be theta
new members NATO invites.Wash'
ington’s real wony is gettingthefol
batch through the U.S. Senate ha
two-thirds majority.
After the candidates aredes
ignated, parliaments of all cut
rent members must ratify the
decision. There is little opposi
tion in Europe but that is notso
in the United States.
Clinton also met with me
bers of the Senate-NATO (
server Group, a lobby led
Sens. William Roth and JosephR,
Biden Jr. of Delaware.
“They pointed out to me in no
uncertain terms we’ve gotasi
job to do,” the president said.
Russia, which vehementlyop-
poses NATO enlargement
nonetheless signed an a
ment in May setting out doser
cooperation with NATO. Ukraine
is expect ed to sign a similar doc
ument here Wednesday.
On Bosnia, Albright said shs
wants to coordinate NATO ac
tion against all who engage:
“extra-legal activities” in do'
a nee of the Dayton accords.
Hun Sen tightens control of Phnom Penh
Weather Outlook
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
(AP) — Soldiers ran roughshod
over the Cambodian capital Mon
day, stocking up with gusto on the
spoils of a weekend coup: looted
televisions, washing machines
and cars hijacked at gunpoint.
At least 35 people were killed in
two days of fighting in Phnom Pehn
when Second Prime Minister Hun
Sen deposed his main rival and
coalition partner, First Prime Minis
ter Prince Norodom Ranariddh.
The prince had slipped away to
France just before the coup. Thou
sands of ordinary Cambodians
grabbed children and belongings
and fled mortar and machine-gun
battles in the capital. The airport re
mained closed Monday, stranding
American college students from Ok
lahoma and other foreigners.
While Hun Sen and his Cambo
dian People’s Party consolidated
their power in the capital, fighting
spread to northwestern Cambodia.
Ranariddh’s royalist supporters
were regrouping for an anticipated
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battle for Cambodia’s second-
largest city, Battambang.
In the northwestern Siem Reap
province, travelers reported heavy
troop movements with tanks and
armored personnel carriers near the
ancient Angkor temples, some of
the world’s most spectacular reli
gious monuments.
The prince called on his support
ers to resist and warned of wide
spread war, while looking for outside
help bringing peace to Cambodia.
“I’d like France to play a role
alongside with Japan as interme
diary,” Ranariddh told Associat
ed Press Television. “If such
fighting will be continuing, we
will have ... civil war.”
In the capital, a nighttime curfew
was lifted Monday, but not until af
ter troops rampaged through the
streets, robbing shops and homes,
unleashing volleys of gunfire into
the air and rounding up defeated
opponents, including former Interi
or Minister Ho Sok.
A neighborhood near Phnom
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By Quatri
Penh University was a wasteland
of wrecked tanks, gutted cars,
houses holed by rocket fire and
spent bullet casings, bodies of
dead royalist troops in the streets.
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