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

[Judi Lynn]

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.

"It's a pivotal election, not just for MORENA, it's a pivotal election for Mexico," the two-time presidential runner-up said in a recent radio interview. "Imagine the message that will go out to the world (if MORENA wins)."

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.

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