Mexico City – Mexico’s former ruling party says it will choose its presidential nominee in a November primary, but one of the chief candidates said the plan could cause a new crisis for the party heading into the July election.
Institutional Revolutionary Party leaders voted Wednesday to elect the presidential nominee Nov. 13 everywhere but in Hidalgo state, where voting would be a week earlier to avoid conflict with a local election.
But the plan outraged one of the party’s two main candidates, Arturo Montiel, who told the Televisa network late Wednesday that the date arrangements were tilted toward his rival, Ro berto Madrazo.
Montiel called on leaders of the party, known as the PRI, “to rectify this and not to expose the party to a crisis that could be very grave for its electoral future.”
He warned he could call the primary’s legitimacy into question.
Montiel’s supporters want a later election date, complain that Madrazo backers may dominate committees set up to oversee the voting and argue that anti-fraud provisions are too weak.
Madrazo resigned as party president less than a month ago.
