BERNARD SHAW, CNN ANCHOR: An opposition candidate won local elections Sunday in Mexico's volatile state of Chiapas, for decades, a stronghold of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. Here is CNN's Mexico bureau chief Harris Whitbeck.</s>HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN MEXICO BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): The celebration in the streets of the Chiapas state capital marked the opposition's victory in the gubernatorial race and a major blow to Mexico's ruling Revolutionary Institutional Party, the PRI, the second such blow in two months having lost the federal presidency in July. The PRI had held both posts for more than 70 years. For analysts and electoral observers alike, the Chiapas selection deemed fraud-free by the authorities bore a clear message to the longstanding party.</s>PAMELA FALK, INTL. ELECTION OBSERVER: It allowed people to know that their vote mattered, particularly because it was an opposition vote, and here what you saw were the issues of violence, of extreme poverty, and of an idea that people want to change.</s>WHITBECK: The state of Chiapas is Mexico's poorest, but has also been one of the traditional bastions of PRI power. The 1994 conflict with Zapatista rebels intensified local politics, and many opposition members and Zapatista supporters accused the local PRI machinery of using old-style intimidation and political repression to stay in power.</s>FALK: The idea here was to see if somebody else could reduce the violence, reduce the tensions and change the economic situation. This was a dramatic upset, and it was a second upset for the ruling party.</s>WHITBECK: The winner in the race promises to reactivate stalled peace talks with the Zapatistas. He also pledged to work toward reducing the poverty at the root of the political unrest. Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Mexico City.
Mexico's PRI Suffers Political Blow in Volatile State of Chiapas