MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) – A federal court in Mexico has annulled a local election defeat for President Felipe Calderon’s conservatives partly because of advertising worn by a Mexican boxer in a match in the United States.
During the televised world title fight in Las Vegas on Nov. 12 between Juan Manuel Marquez and Filipino star Manny Pacquiao, Marquez wore trunks sporting the logo of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
The court, saying the logo broke rules that bar political parties from campaigning three days before an election, threw out the PRI’s narrow win in Morelia, the capital of the western state of Michoacan.
The decision could affect the overall result in Michoacan, where the Nov. 13 election was held the day after the Marquez-Pacquiao bout.
In its ruling, the court also cited a television appearance by winning PRI gubernatorial candidate Fausto Vallejo after the end of official campaign times. The PRI’s candidate in Morelia, Wilfrido Lazaro, appeared in the same broadcast.
The PRI – which hopes to regain the presidency next year – defeated Calderon’s sister Luisa Maria in a close contest in Michoacan, the family’s home state.
Michoacan’s federal election institute must now arrange new elections for the state capital.
Calderon’s ruling National Action Party (PAN), whose runner-up in Morelia, Marko Cortes, filed a complaint over the PRI’s campaign methods, said the court’s decision cast doubt on the result for the whole of Michoacan.
“This time, the PRI’s tricks couldn’t pull off the fraud. The one for governor should end up the same way,” Juan Molinar, a prominent PAN politician who is close to Calderon, said yesterday via his account on microblogging site Twitter.
Marquez went on to lose the welterweight fight in a controversial majority decision for Pacquiao.
