Polls Show Mexican Candidates Virtually Even

Ruling party candidate Francisco Labastida held the thinnest of leads Friday in most of the final opinion polls released before the July 2 presidential election, indicating that his race against charismatic challenger Vicente Fox is the closest in Mexican history.

When their margins of error are taken into account, nearly all the polls showed the race to be a statistical dead heat. Among the major surveys, Labastida led in three by about 3 percentage points. Fox was ahead in one key poll, but only by a single percentage point.

In a country accustomed to virtually automatic and overwhelming victories by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which has won every presidential election since 1929, the closeness of this race has generated a nationwide case of jitters.

Some analysts predict that a close election might delay the release of final results, which could generate charges of vote-counting fraud, political unrest and volatility in the financial markets.

Yet an array of exit polls and quick counts carried out on election day should help confirm the official figures and could even reveal the winner within a couple of hours after polls close--unless the vote is too close to call.

As the race nears an end, the PRI this week accused Fox of receiving illegal campaign contributions from supporters in other nations, an emotional issue in nationalistic Mexico. Fox dismissed the statement as a last-minute smear.

Friday was the last day that opinion polls could be published under Mexican law, and a clutch of surveys appeared before the deadline.

A survey by Reforma, one of Mexico’s most respected newspaper groups, showed Labastida with 42% to 39% for Fox, who is running for the center-right National Action Party. A poll by the daily newspaper Milenio had an identical result. And a survey by the Reuters news agency gave Labastida 43% to 40% for Fox.

The only major survey to put Fox ahead was conducted by the Economists and Associates Group, or GEA, a highly regarded economic consulting firm whose periodic surveys are sponsored by all the major Mexican political parties and other organizations.

The GEA poll gave Fox 39% to 38% for Labastida, who dropped 3 percentage points since the previous GEA poll a few weeks earlier.

In the most recent GEA survey and most other polls, the third significant candidate, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas of the Democratic Revolution Party, picked up a couple of percentage points. But in no case did he reach 20%. Fox has repeatedly called on Cardenas to back his race against the PRI candidate, but the veteran center-left politician has demurred.

Mauricio Gonzalez, the director of GEA, said Cardenas’ slight recovery appeared to be coming from Labastida supporters--not, as most analysts had predicted, at the expense of Fox. The conventional wisdom had seen Labastida benefiting from an opposition split between Fox and Cardenas.

Guillermo Valdes, GEA’s top political analyst, said the replies to poll questions suggest that Fox faces a tough challenge as the election draws nearer. “We have been seeing a growth in the fear of change, and that part of the population that is more conservative may be wanting to stay with the current situation.”

He said respondents who said they want the current situation to remain rose from 27% in November to 36% now.

Also in question is what undecided voters, who usually number about 20% of the electorate, will do. Several polls suggested that they might not shift the result because they are least likely to vote.

The Reforma newspaper carried an editorial Friday that speculated whether undecided voters in Mexico will behave as their U.S. counterparts do and simply follow the trend of the decided voters, or whether they will follow the “Nicaragua effect.”

In the latter scenario, those who tell pollsters that they are undecided are merely afraid of possible reprisals--and will vote for an opposition candidate in the secrecy of the voting booth.

Under any scenario, the poll numbers show, the winner is unlikely to have much more than 40% of the vote, and certainly less than a majority. The top vote-getter will win even if he does not receive 50% of the vote.

Given recent allegations by Fox and Cardenas of PRI vote-buying tactics, a close vote would almost certainly bring challenges in the national electoral tribunal, potentially dragging out the uncertainty. Cardenas supporters have long maintained that their candidate won the 1988 presidential race but was cheated out of the victory by a fraudulent count of the votes.

In recent days, Labastida has attacked Fox as a loco who would be dangerous running the country. This week, Labastida’s campaign issued copies of canceled dollar checks indicating that Fox had accepted foreign campaign donations, an embarrassing charge that left Fox on the defensive.

Fox’s finance manager, Lino Korrodi, was quoted Friday as saying that funds were received before Jan. 15, when the campaign officially began and rules forbidding foreign funding took effect.

Fox brushed aside the PRI allegations, accusing President Ernesto Zedillo of orchestrating the case and declaring, “Let [Zedillo] stop spying and stop breaking the law and stop interfering in the electoral process.”