Hemisphere Focus: Showdown for Democratic Revolutionary Party in Michoacan

• On June 24, the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) will select its gubernatorial candidate in Michoacán, where the leftist-nationalist party has long dominated state politics.
• This summer, however, the showdown involves two PRD factions, which resemble scorpions in a bottle: the incumbent administration of Lázaro Cárdenas Batel, son of three-time presidential contender Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and grandson of venerated late chief executive Lázaro Cárdenas del Río (1934–1940), favors Enrique Bautista Villegas, former state government secretary; Leonel Cota Montaño, PRD national president, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the party’s losing presidential nominee, have aligned with Senator Leonel Godoy Rangel. Four other
competitors make up the six-man field.
• Michoacán is President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa’s home state, and his National Action Party (PAN) believes that a divisive PRD primary will enable a panista to capture the state house for the first time in history.
• Leaders of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), whose presidential aspirant captured only 19 percent of the vote in the state in mid-2006, are debating whether to run their own candidate or pursue an alliance with the PRD nominee in order to prevent a PAN victory.
• Calderón, with the backing of Governor Cárdenas, has dispatched thousands of troops to fight warring drug cartels in Michoacán. While narco-traffickers appear to have steered clear of the statewide campaign, they will exert influence in enclaves where they are active.