Millions of Mexicans voted in local elections across six states Sunday, testing the battered popularity of Mexico’s ruling party amid a severe recession that has wiped out more than 1 million jobs.
The voting was mostly peaceful, but two deaths were reported in the state of Oaxaca. Party officials said a member of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party was killed and two were injured in Mazatlan Villa de Flores, and the brother of an opposition candidate was shot to death in Asuncion Ixtaltepec.
Polls closed at 6 p.m., but official results weren’t expected until at least Monday, and there were few reliable exit polls.
One exit poll conducted among 1,460 voters in the central city of Puebla found the opposition National Action party leading in the race for mayor, 50.2 percent to 38.6 percent. The University of Guadalajara’s Center for Opinion, which conducted the poll, said it had a margin of error of 5 percentage points.
