PANista declared Tijuana’s mayor-elect

Juan Manuel Gastelum, an attorney and member of Mexico’s National Action Party, was confirmed Saturday as Tijuana’s mayor-elect by the Baja California Electoral Institute.

In the final count released in the state capital of Mexicali, Gastelum won with 95,252 votes. The final count confirmed preliminary results that gave Gastelum a narrow lead shortly after polls closed in the June 5 election.

In second place, with 91,125 votes, was Julian Leyzaola Perez, a former Tijuana police chief running as a candidate for a small party, the Partido de Encuentro Social.

Rene Mendivil, the candidate for Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI, was in third place, with 88,082 votes, according to the official count.

Gastelum, a 61-year-old Tijuana native, is a former state and federal legislator who is close to Baja California Gov. Francisco Vega de Lamadrid. He is scheduled to launch his three-year term on Dec. 1, replacing Mayor Jorge Astiazaran of the PRI.

Despite a field of 12 candidates, voter turnout was low in the Tijuana mayoral election, with about a third of the city’s 1.29 million voters casting ballots. Both Leyzaola and Mendivil are challenging the vote count, citing numerous irregularities, and plan to demand that the election be annulled.

Their petitions would first have to be considered by a state electoral tribunal. The tribunal’s decision could be appealed to a federal electoral tribunal in Mexico City, known as the Trife, which would have the final word.

Victor Alejandro Espinoza, a political analyst at Tijuana’s Colegio de la Frontera Norte, sees the challenges as long shots.

“There were many errors,” Espinosa said, but he attributes them to inexperienced electoral officials and confusion at the precincts rather than to fraud. “I think it would be unlikely that the election would be annulled and the election repeated.”

sandra.dibble@sduniontribune.com