LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The PRI is seen by many as an authoritarian party - some call it "an ideal dictatorship," which ruled virtually unchallenged for seven decades until being defeated in 2000.

Nieto's nearest opponent in the polls was Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City who lost by a slim margin in the 2006 presidential election. Obrador leads a coalition of leftist parties.

Josefina Vazquez Mota, candidate for the incumbent National Action Party, in office since ousting the PRI in 2000, is a distant third. President Felipe Calderon is barred by law from running for a second term.

The Mexican military announced that it would be in full force in the border city of Nuevo Laredo after suspected drug traffickers detonated a car bomb outside City Hall on Friday.

The elections here have been mostly uneventful, with complaints of slow-to-open polling stations, long lines and a shortage of ballots.  

The resurgence of popularity for the PRI stems from Mexicans who are dismayed with the high cost of President Calderon's drug war, which has left 50,000 people - both innocent and guilty alike, dead from violent circumstance. Tens of thousands of troops have been deployed in parts of Mexico to fight powerful drug cartels who supply the United States with much of its cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine.

Mexicans are also dissatisfied with sluggish economic growth. The PRI has claimed to have reformed, but memories remain vivid of an undemocratic system of coercion and repression.

The PRI's Peña Nieto was governor of the state of Mexico until last year, and he cast his ballot in Atlacomulco. A tiny group of protesters waved banners criticizing him until being run off.

The PRI is a well connected party known to get out the vote, sometimes in the past with payments and other perks.

A major concern is how Lopez Obrador will react if he loses. In 2006, he refused to recognize Calderon's victory and unleashed a series of paralyzing street protests. If the margin of Peña Nieto's victory is not large, similar chaos may be in store.

Neither Peña Nieto nor the other candidates have proposed major changes in the war on drug cartels, and all insist on continued use of the military and close cooperation with Washington, which has invested millions of dollars in the fight.

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