Mexico's PAN nominates Fox for presidency

Monday, 13 September 1999

http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/UA9406.html

© 1999 The New York Times
MEXICO CITY - Vicente Fox Quesada was chosen yesterday as the National Action Party's presidential candidate in a nationwide primary. The outcome makes him the man for the governing party to beat in the election next year.
Fox's nomination in the vote within the party - the pro-business opposition group known as the PAN - was a foregone conclusion, since he was the only candidate. But the balloting by registered members of the party was still a novelty, because for decades it picked its presidential nominees in closed conventions.
Opinion polls show Fox, 56, is the most popular challenger to the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which has not lost a presidential election since its founding 70 years ago.
Despite Fox's solid appeal among voters who dislike the governing party, up to now he has been forced to mount an outsider's campaign, with little enthusiastic support from the best-known leaders of his party and critical cash shortages.
In the last three weeks, while the PRI dominated news coverage by holding the first televised debate ever among the men who hope to be its candidate, Fox's campaign disappeared from the media. PAN officials said he had run out of money.
Officials from Fox's campaign said they hoped that after his official nomination yesterday, party leaders would rally round him, eliminating doubts among PAN supporters about his legitimacy and opening the spigots of contributions.


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