Monterrey, Mexico – Former Mexican Energy Secretary Felipe Calderon on Sunday staged a surprise victory in the first round of three primary elections that will decide the presidential candidate for the ruling National Action Party in 2006 elections.
Three former secretaries from President Vicente Fox’s Cabinet are vying for the nomination, while Fox is prohibited by law from seeking a second term.
With ballots from 95 percent of polling places counted, Calderon received 46 percent of the vote, according to the National Action Party, or PAN.
Former Interior Minister Santiago Creel had 35 percent of votes counted, and former Environment Secretary Alberto Cardenas received about 19 percent.
Creel had led preferences among party members for months. But Calderon has steadily gained ground in opinion polls and performed well in a nationally televised debate last week.
Members of the center-right PAN across 10 Mexican states took part in Sunday’s vote. The second vote is Oct. 2, and the third is Oct. 23.
If no candidate obtains 50 percent plus one vote in the first phase a second round will be held Nov. 6 between the top two contenders.
The voting kicked off the primary season among Mexico’s three major political parties, which must register their candidates by January.
During 71 years of uninterrupted power – which ended with Fox’s historic victory in 2000 – Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, presidents hand-picked their successors behind closed doors and the party conducted elections often marred by fraud.
This year, political parties already were tossing and turning over whom to back.
A former congressman and PAN president, Calderon resigned as energy secretary in May 2004 after Fox criticized him for an early jump into the presidential race.
Calderon has proposed to extend Fox’s success on economic stability, while improving on law enforcement and creating a coalition-style government if the PAN fails to win control of Congress. He ran unsuccessfully for governor in his home state of Michoacan in 1995.
Left in second place, Creel said he would redouble efforts.
The winner will face the candidates of the PRI, which remains Mexico’s largest party, the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, and possibly from smaller parties.
Former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the PRD leads all polls ahead of the presidential election and is expected to receive the party’s nomination Sunday without contest.
Two people were seeking the candidacy of the PRI. Former Mexico state governor Arturo Montiel and former PRI party president Roberto Madrazo were scheduled to face off in a primary Oct. 30.
