And 60% of the campaign money goes to the television channels, which charge a fourfold premium for campaign spots in prime time.The electoral institute, one of Mexico's most respected institutions, has itself fallen under a small cloud.
A new, independent electoral institute has been created to oversee the campaigning and assure an honest count.
The current interior minister, Diodoro Carrasco, said in an interview that his policy was to help the electoral institute to hold fair elections.
In three states, PRI members have been discovered posing as officials of the electoral institute to organize training sessions for polling place workers.
Jose Woldenberg, a former university professor who is president of the electoral institute, makes a concise estimate of the possibility of fraud in this year's ballot counting.
After Mr. Elizondo was warned about the spots by the state electoral institute, the same commercials were broadcast on stations in Juárez's American sister city, El Paso.
At 9 30 p.m. results from the state electoral institute indicated that, with some 150,000 votes counted, Mr. Ojeda was leading with 44percentt of the vote, while Mr. Adrade had nearly 43percentt.
Mr. Zedillo correctly understood that the only way to restore public confidence in elections was to create an independent electoral institute to supervise campaigning, balloting and the tallying of votes.
After weeks of mounting tension, the broadcast executives agreed at an April 13 meeting, brokered by the Interior Ministry, to begin broadcasting the advertisements immediately, although they will take their fight with the electoral institute to the courts after the July vote.
The charge of overspending will be hard to prove or disprove: the state electoral institute cannot demand the parties' accounts until two months after polling day, and they need not produce receipts.Another thing that undermines electoral fairness is not even illegal: the press sometimes demands a fee just to give a party news coverage (and will happily issue a receipt, if desired).
