Mexico City - Mexico Could Return Old Ruling Party To Power

The bricklayer and father of four did so with a single expectation: change.

"We need more security, more jobs, prices keep going up and wages don't keep pace," Hern ndez, 50, said after voting for the once long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Mexicans voted the PRI out office a dozen years ago, giving the boot to a party that had ruled Mexico for 71-consecutive years and presided over peso crises, governments rife with graft and numerous rigged elections.

Now voters like Hern ndez are turning again to the PRI, whose telegenic candidate Enrique Pe a Nieto is promising to pull Mexico out of economic malaise, generate millions of new jobs and quell the drug-cartel turf wars that have claimed more than 50,000 lives.

Pe a Nieto, 45, has outlined few specific solutions for insecurity, but Hern ndez has no doubts a PRI victory would calm the country and improve the economy even if the party he represents is "behind the times" and still rife with vices.

"The PRI gives, but it also takes it robs," he said. However, Hern ndez added, "Pe a Nieto is different."

Others voting in Chimalhuacan, located to the east of Mexico City , expressed nostalgia for the PRI rule of the last century and disenchantment with the current rule under the more conservative National Action Party (PAN).

"The PAN hasn't been able to govern 50,000 deaths is proof of that," said government worker Marcos Lozano, 39. "We deserve a change."

Change will come at the ballot box and Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute says nearly 80 million Mexicans are eligible to vote in elections that will select a new president, Congress and Senate. President Felipe Calder n is limited to a single term in office, which expires Dec. 1, when his successor is sworn in.

Voting proceeded without major incidents Sunday, although polling stations in many places such as Chimalhuacan opened late. A drug cartel with a quasi-religious discourse known as Knights Templar passed out flyers on election day in the western state of Michoac n, urging candidates to keep their promises, the newspaper Reforma reported.

Pe a Nieto led all polls taken before Sunday's election most by double digits; none showed him trailing at any point since campaigning began March 30.

"This guy ran a really good campaign with a lot of money and a lot of professionalism, with a lot of good reactive capacity," said Federico Est vez, political science professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico

Scandals didn't stick not even reports that he fathered two children out of wedlock.

Helping even more, "His two main rivals weren't up to it," Est vez said.

Josefina V zquez Mota of the governing PAN, Mexico's first female presidential candidate for a major party, stumbled almost immediately and nearly fainted during an appearance.

"I want to see change," said Arnulfo Alarc n, 60, a PAN supporter in Chimalhuacan. "A woman would probably govern better than a man, honestly."

Former Mexico City mayor and left-wing candidate Andr s Manuel L pez Obrador, who ran on an agenda of national reconciliation and creating a "Loving Republic," gained in the polls as the campaign unfolded and entered election day in second place.

"All the other parties have had their chance, why not him?" asked Sergio Garc a, 43, a L pez Obrador supporter in the Mexico City suburb of Nezahualc yotl.

L pez Obrador lost the 2006 election to outgoing President Felipe Calder n by a single percentage point in a contest he considered fraudulent.

The PRI finished a distant third in 2006 and failed to capture a single state. But the party made a comeback, especially on the state level, where it maintained a well-oiled political machine and gained control of gubernatorial offices, said historian Il n Semo of the Iberoamerican University.

Pe a Nieto built his reputation as governor of Mexico state, which surrounds Mexico City on three sides and contains Chimalhuacan. He promised 608 public works projects, ranging from hospitals to highways, during his 2005-2011 gubernatorial term and then steadily announced the projects' completions.

"He's the first politician to keep his word," said Marisela Cuevas, a taco-stand waitress who says his administration brought a waterworks to her municipality after years of empty promises by others.

Another possible reason to vote PRI: giveaways in form of a monthly delivery of rice, beans, sugar, cooking oil and soap.

Taxi driver Mar a Eugenia Garc a said the PRI and left-wing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) plied people in her neighborhood with 500 pesos ($40) and gifts of cement, water tanks and even household appliances.

"This is about a blender," she said of the mentality displayed by many poor voters. "These parties are spending our tax money on this when there are people eating dirt tacos."

Convenience-store owner Guadalupe Mendoza found the publicity promoting Pe a Nieto overwhelming and says it began almost immediately after he became governor.

"He's a product of marketing like one of those miracle products you see on TV," she said.

A student movement, "Yo Soy 132" (I'm 132), surged to protest alleged bias in favor of Pe a Nieto by the nation's powerful TV industry something broadcaster Televisa and the PRI campaign deny

"We say in my family that people who vote PRI haven't read Mexican history," said psychology student Marlon de la Portilla, 20, before election day.

The attention paid to Pe a Nieto and his TV-star wife as he moved from provincial politician to presidential frontrunner has been hard not to notice, said Est vez, the political science professor.

"This guy was on the tube the whole time," Est vez said. "He was our political reality TV show."