Mexico Trucker Online

It was one more defeat for the once powerful PRI who held the reins of power in Mexico for more than 76 years. It also shows the Mexican people are “thinking” instead of voting for those who promise the moon and in the end, give them a moon pie

Forsaking the red crocodile-skin vest of his hard-fought gubernatorial campaign, gambling tycoon Jorge Hank Rhon yesterday conceded defeat in Sunday’s election, saying “the trends obviously are not in my favor.”

Hank, 51, the former Tijuana mayor and a member of Mexico’s once-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, gave no indication of his political future, but said he would remain “at the service of my party.”

Top PRI officials are expected to announce today whether they will challenge the results.

Official results are expected in the next few days, but preliminary results from Baja California’s Electoral Institute gave José Guadalupe Osuna Millan of the National Action Party, or PAN, a nearly seven-point lead over Hank – 50.57 percent for Osuna, versus 43.70 for Hank.

The unofficial figures showed the PAN also ahead in four out of five mayoral races and poised to capture a sizable majority in the 25-member state legislature.

Hank, the wealthy and controversial operator of Tijuana’s Agua Caliente Racetrack, disappeared from public sight after he voted Sunday morning. He avoided a news conference at his campaign headquarters late Sunday.

He didn’t reappear until late Monday, when he acknowledged his defeat on Tijuana television. Hank met with the media again yesterday, when he invited reporters to a news conference at the racetrack.

Hank’s black German shepherd, Amigo, and a half-dozen Chihuahuas greeted a couple of dozen reporters as they stepped into his private office filled with an assortment of artifacts, including dog statues, elephant tusks, a painting of a man resembling Hank in a clown costume, and a series of figurines in various sexual poses.

Sitting beneath a photograph of his late father, the powerful PRI member Carlos Hank González, Hank seemed relaxed, never losing his composure as he fielded dozens of questions.

Instead of his trademark red campaign vest, Hank wore a light pink shirt and a dark jacket. He attributed his loss to a relatively low turnout – about 41 percent – among the state’s 2.1 million voters.

PRI leaders blame Baja California’s current governor, Eugenio Elorduy Walther of the PAN, for scaring away voters by raising fears of possible violence when he assured voters that soldiers and federal police would be on patrol on election day.

Some analysts say that low turnouts in Baja California tend to work in the PRI’s favor: Hank won the 2004 mayor’s race with an even lower turnout, 33.4 percent.

“The uncertainty about whether or not something would happen prevented many people from going out,” Hank said. “I wasn’t able to motivate people, to assure them that nothing would happen.”

When the news conference was over, a reporter shot out one more question: Why does he own a vest made of the skins of donkey penises?

Hank was happy to respond: “I don’t know if you’ve ever stopped to think about what is the softest part of an animal’s skin,” he said, before stepping away through the crowd of chuckling journalists.