Election day is near for Mexico

BY BLAKE SCHMIDT, SUN STAFF WRITER
Jun 18, 2006

SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, Son. — Portraits of aspiring politicians seem to stare at passers-by from signs and billboards. Campaign jingles blast out from bullhorns strapped on top of sedans. Campaign headquarters bustle.

Election time is fast approaching in this border city and across Mexico.

On July 2, voters in San Luis Rio Colorado will choose from among three candidates for mayor. And, they will join voters around the country in electing a new president.

The vote may be seen as a referendum on the National Action Party, a conservative party which has held the mayorship of San Luis for the past 12 years and which captured the presidency for the first time in 2000.

The party, known by its Spanish acronym PAN, is fielding as its mayoral candidate Ruben Espino, whose campaign is promoting family assistance and economic development. hopes to take retain the office for his party.

But the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is trying to make a political comeback in San Luis. Its first-ever female candidate for mayor, Adriana Aceves Pacheco, who has family ties in Yuma, says she'll be able to work "in harmony" with Sonora Gov. Eduardo Bours, also of the PRI, to create new jobs in the border city.

Meanwhile, the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) hopes to ride on the coattails of the PRD's Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a leading candidate for president. Among other things, PRD mayoral candidate Santos Yescos promises to rescue the city's tourism industry, which he says has been dying a slow death under the PAN administration.

The winner of the mayoral race will serve a three-year term in office.