MORELIA, Mexico ? The race between Mexican president Felipe Calderon's sister and the candidate of the resurgent opposition party was a dead heat early Monday with early counts too close to name the next governor of violence-plagued Michoacoan state.
Calderon's conservative National Action Party, or PAN, is seeking a symbolic victory in his home state, where he launched his nationwide armed offensive against drug cartels in late 2006. A focal point in his administration, the drug war has killed more than 40,000 people according to many estimates, although no official figures have been released in nearly a year.
A win for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico for 71 years until 2000, would build momentum in its bid to take back the presidency in 2012.
Roy Campos, president of independent pollster Consulta Mitofsky, told the Televisa network the race was a "technical tie" that only official ballot counts could clear up.
With a quarter of polling stations reporting, Fausto Vallejo Figueroa, of the PRI, had 35 percent of the votes, while the president's sister, Luisa Maria "Cocoa" Calderon, had 33 percent. Silvano Aureoles Conejo, whose leftist Revolutionary Democratic Party currently holds the governorship, had 29 percent.
Voters also elected 40 state congressional representatives and 112 mayors following dozens of drug cartel-related attacks over the past two years targeting local officials in the state.
The PRI so far is fielding the most popular pre-candidate in the presidential race, former Mexico state Gov. Enrique Pena Nieto.
Opinion polls have been indicating that Calderon's PAN will struggle to retain the presidency it first won in 2000, ending 71 years of one-party rule for the PRI.
Luisa Maria Calderon campaigned on a promise to advance her brother's anti-drug campaign and led in most opinion polls going into the vote, the last state election before the presidential contest in July. The PAN has been hurt recently by voter fatigue over drug violence, a factor that weakened the PRD in its bid to hold on to Michoacan's governorship.
Such violence has been a main concern in Michoacan. But Sunday's vote took place normally with a few exceptions.
Jesus Zambrano Grijalvo, president of the PRD, said his party sympathizers in a mountainous zone plagued by drug violence were being intimidated by organized crime gangs and pressured not to vote. Zambrano did not go into details at a news conference Sunday.
Residents of the rural city of Cheran refused to let poll workers into their town amid demands for an election that they said would respect their customs and traditions. The indigenous Purepecha people who live in Cheran have in recent months wielded rifles and mounted roadblocks keeping out suspected illegal loggers and drug traffickers.
The Michoacan Electoral Institute said in a news release Sunday that officials were still unable to carry out elections in Cheran and were determining how the 16,000 residents there will elect their leaders.
In the city of La Piedad, a local newspaper published on Sunday an unsigned note blaming the PAN for drug killings and threatening the party's supporters. News reports said the newspaper had been forced to publish the warning.
"Don't wear T-shirts or PAN advertising because we don't want to confuse you and have innocent people die," read the note, which was also circulated by email.
It was not clear who sent the email or published the newspaper ad, which came 11 days after La Piedad Mayor Ricardo Guzman was shot dead while handing out leaflets for several PAN candidates, including Luisa Maria Calderon. No arrests have been made in the attack.
Twitter users claiming to belong to the "Anonymous" hackers movement said they were behind an attack on the website of a party backing Luisa Maria Calderon. The tweets also said hackers attacked the Michoacan Electoral Institute's website.
The PAN has yet to win a governorship in Michoacan, and the PRD has dominated federal offices and the presidential vote there since 2000. Local offices have been a toss-up between the PRD and the PRI.
As Michoacan's governing party for a decade, the PRD drew criticism for the state's drug violence, and some of its legislative candidates were accused of having close ties to drug cartels.
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Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon contributed to this report.
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