On August 20, the voters of Chiapas state will cast votes for a new governor.

Unlike the national elections in July, the cleanest in Mexico's history, the process in Chiapas is less certain. Still in the firm grip of the PRI and crawling with army troops and the militarized police of the PFP (Federal Preventive Police), Chiapas is notorious in Latin America for the corruption of its electoral process.

Yet this time the PRI faces a strong challenge from the "Alliance for Chiapas," a coalition of eight political parties backing a single candidate, Pablo Salazar Mendiguchia. These alliances have become common in Mexican politics. Vicente Fox, the winner of the presidential election, headed the "Alliance for Change," composed of his National Action Party (PAN) and the Green Party of Mexico (PVEM). The other strong challenger, Cuahtemoc Cardenas, headed the "Alliance for Mexico," composed of his Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and four other political parties.

The Alliance for Chiapas includes the PAN, the PRD and six smaller parties.

These eight parties with many political differences, have united to wrest Chiapas from the PRI's iron grip. This alliance promises to give the PRI a run for its money. While Labastida of the PRI won the state's balloting in the presidential elections, Fox and Cardenas, between them, garnered more actual votes.

Still, the PRI has plenty of tricks up its sleeve, and the firepower to back them up. Firmly in control of the state government, the party is accused of

using government funds and promises of government projects in attempts to buy votes. The Alliance has announced that they have no confidence that the current PRI governor of Chiapas has any interest in presiding over a free and fair election.

Then there is the question of armed coercion and intimidation of PRI opponents. It is widely suspected that the PRI won the state's presidential talley in no small part due to the ongoing harrassement of the opposition by the army, federal and state police as well as PRI backed "paramilitaries," in some cases causing people to be afraid to show up at the polls at all. The army continues to occupy pro-Zapatista towns and villages which are unquestionably opposition strongholds. Following the PRI's loss of the national elections, three new military detachments were sent to the state under the guise of conducting a "reforestation" project in the Lacandon forest. A recent letter from the Ricardo Flores Magon Autonomous Council, who describe themselves as an "autonomous municipality in rebellion," questions why troops sent to plant trees have brought high powered weapons and tanks and are deploying in an attitude of attack.

The PFP, arrived in the state in force a few weeks before the July 2 elections. This police force was initially deployed with the excuse that they were going to evict illegal squatters in the Lacandon Preserve to prevent forest fires. As the squatters had been living there for two decades without causing any significant damage, this excuse didn't last more than a couple of days. Rather then undeploy these "political police," the government fabricated a series of armed confrontations to justify the PFP's presence. These too were soon unmasked as transparent ruses. Following this, the PRI government quit announcing justificatons, and as it stands, the PFP remains in Chiapas just because it wants to.

There have been ambushes and other violent confrontations in the state which might justify the PFP's presence. But investigations of these conflicts have shown that they have occurred between rival groups of PRI supporters, drug traffickers and other groups unconnected with the Zapatistas. Meanwhile, the PFP continues to focus on Zapatista supporters whose main crime seems to be strong opposition to the PRI government.

While Chiapas remains subject to PRI control, the days of the PRI's absolute authority are passing. The Allaince for Chiapas is the strongest electoral threat the PRI-held state government has ever faced. The Alliance recognizes that the outcome of this election is of vital importance to bringing peace to Chiapas and have made it a focus of their parties' attentions. It is said that Cardenas will campaign in support of the alliance's candidate. President-elect Fox, citing Presidential interference in local politics as one of the problems with PRI rule that he vows to change, is however, unlikely to show up in person.

The Alliance and other interested parties warn of widespread violence should the PRI win an apparently fraudulent election.

The PRI, responding to charges that it is trying to steal the election complains that the charges are without proof and that the assumption is that "democracy exists only if we lose."