Mexico state leaders vow to pursue death penalty

MEXICO CITY -- Politicians in Mexico's most populous state vowed Monday to push ahead with a plan to institute the death penalty despite questionable public support and strong opposition from human rights groups, the president and the Roman Catholic Church.

The effort -- which goes against the country's historical opposition to the death penalty -- is shaping up to be one of the hot-button issues in state and national elections.

Leaders of the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, said Monday that the results of a referendum Sunday gave them the mandate to push for capital punishment in Mexico state, a sprawling region of suburbs and shantytowns surrounding Mexico City.

"The results were very clear," state PRI president Isidro Pastor told The Associated Press. "We asked the people and the people responded. ... We have to act accordingly."

With 13 million residents, Mexico state is the most populous and one of the country's most diverse. It is often viewed as a microcosm of the nation.

The nonbinding referendum, sponsored by an alliance of the PRI and the Green Party, asked voters whether they would like to see kidnappers and murderers put to death. The poll also asked if life sentences should be imposed on rapists and corrupt police and judges.

Pastor said final returns showed 85 percent of voters were in favor of capital punishment and 95 percent favored life sentences.

But only 800,000 -- or about 10 percent -- of the state's 8 million eligible voters participated in the poll, raising doubts about whether the PRI had a mandate.

"The death penalty did not bring out the vote," proclaimed the front-page headline Monday in the major Mexico City newspaper El Universal.

Sent a message

Pastor said Monday that while he had hoped for at least 300,000 more votes, those who did participate sent a decisive message in favor of the death penalty.

Yet the newspaper Reforma cast doubt on the vote's validity, noting that one of its reporters was able to cast a vote three times -- on the Internet, by telephone and at a polling place.

Pastor said he doubted there were many cases of double-voting, adding that the final results would be made public later this week.

"Even if you discount the 200,000 people who voted on the Internet and in person, we still had 600,000 participating" by telephone, he said. "We didn't play any tricks."

The national PRI withheld comment on the state referendum. But given the measure's apparent popularity in Mexico state, it is one that national party members could latch onto as campaigning heats up for midterm elections on July 6.

All 500 congressional seats and several governor's posts are up for grabs in this summer's elections -- the first major national contest since Vicente Fox won the 2000 presidential election, ending 71 years of PRI rule.

Fox, of the conservative National Action Party, rejected the initiative, saying that "Democratic countries ... don't believe in the death penalty."

Mexico's constitution allows the death penalty for certain crimes, but it hasn't been implemented in decades. The Supreme Court has ruled that it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Just last month, Mexico asked the World Court in The Hague to stop the execution of 51 Mexicans in the United States, saying U.S. officials failed to inform the prisoners of their right to contact their consulate.

Fox also canceled a visit to President Bush's Texas ranch in August after U.S. authorities refused to halt the execution of a Mexican convicted of killing a Dallas police officer.

High sentiment against the death penalty also has roots in religion; the majority of Mexicans are nominally Catholic. In his Sunday sermon, Cardinal Norberto Rivera said the death penalty "would not solve anything."

But some say it may be just what is needed in a country with skyrocketing crime rates and a corrupt justice system.

"There is a lot of crime in Mexico state, and we need something more severe to punish it," said Jorge Macias, lawyer in Toluca, capital of Mexico state. "Criminals are arrested and the next day they go free. That is just not right."