Dumped pig heads, threats mar tight election in key Mexican state

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

June 04, 2017, 03:58:00 PM EDT By Reuters


By Anthony Esposito TEXCOCO, MexicoJune 4 (Reuters) - Pig heads dumped outside polling stations and phone threats marred the final hours before an election in a major Mexican state where voters decide on Sunday whether to stick with the ruling party, in a dry run for next year's presidential contest.

President Enrique Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is battling to halt a run of losses. It is squaring off in the State of Mexico, its biggest regional bastion, with the new party of leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who leads early opinion polls for the July 2018 presidential race.

In PRI hands since 1929, the State of Mexico is home to one in eight Mexican voters. If it falls to Lopez Obrador'sNational Regeneration Movement, or MORENA, it could provide him with a springboard to the top job.

. . .

Victory for the combative Lopez Obrador in 2018 could push Mexico in a more nationalist direction at a time of heightened tensions with the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump has riled Mexicans with threats to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement and build a border wall to keep out illegal immigrants.






Read more: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/dumped-pig-heads-threats-mar-tight-election-in-key-mexican-state-20170604-00032#ixzz4j5ysA5Su

[Doug the Dem]

1. What's the Spanish Word for 'Iowa'?

[icymist]

2. I couldn't help but notice that PRI wasn't labeled "Left" or "Right"

While the "Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez" was. Interesting.

[a la izquierda]

3. That's because the PRI isn't left or right.

It was traditionally an umbrella party until factionalism occurred in the 1980s. It's a moderate party. PAN is right wing (well they're conservative anyway), and the PRD used to be leftist.

[Bob Loblaw]

4. What's the deal with pig heads?

First Kathy Griffin, now this.

[Sugar Smack]

5. I think it's a fashionable way to show disapproval.

I personally attribute references to "swine" or "heads-of-pigs" to Hunter S. Thompson's writings. But it may have started long before that.