Uncertainty in Oaxaca Elections

Uncertainty prevails today in the elections being held in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, when the polling stations are empty and an attack on a police post left one officer dead.

Press reports indicated that during the early hours of Sunday, eight strangers shot at the preventive police of Juchitan, capital of that state.

The incident linked with the elections to renovate 152 mayorships in Oaxaca, adds to the ghost of abstentionism estimated in over 60 percent registered during the polls for deputies last August.

According to the State Attorney, Evencio Nicolas Martinez, officers of this entity are carrying out the investigations opened on the agresión.

Sergio Segreste, secretary of Citizens Protection, explained that state corporations maintain operation IRMA (Immediate Response of Maximum Alert) in order to guarantee peaceful polling for voters.

Teofilo Manuel García, secretary general of the government, pointed that in 29 of 152 municipalities where elections take place risky conditions prevail and greater alert was adopted.

Meanwhile, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca and the National Union of Education Workers called their bases to cast a “punishment vote.” According to both institutions, the measure responds to politician differences concerning the citizens´ interests.

For these elections, the State Electoral Institute set up 2,897 polling stations in the 152 municipalities governed by the system of political parties which have a nominal list of one million 584 thousand 309 voters.