Human Head, Fire Mark Mexico Elections

Xalapa, Mexico: Mexico's ruling party sought to keep key governorships in local elections on Sunday, with focus on a state where a head was dumped near a polling place and a mayor's house was torched.

Several acts of violence were reported in the oil-rich eastern state of Veracruz, which has been led by President Enrique Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) for more than 80 years.

Veracruz is the biggest trophy among 12 states choosing new governors in a vote considered as a test for the PRI's hopes of keeping the presidency in the 2018 presidential election.

The PRI holds the governorship in nine of the dozen states up for grabs. The other 20 federal regions were not electing new governors.

Political parties and candidates declared victory in various states, even though officials results were not due for hours.

The three gubernatorial candidates in Veracruz said exit polls had them winning.

"We didn't just defeat a political party. We defeated a corrupt system," said Miguel Angel Yunes, candidate of a coalition of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).
 PRI leader Manlio Fabio Beltrones voiced confidence of victory in nine states, declaring "today we can say that Mexico chose PRI."

Head, fire, kidnapping

Officials and the opposition reported several incidents in Veracruz.

The human head was found Saturday in a park near a school serving as a polling place in the town of Emiliano Zapata, next to a note threatening the local mayor and his son, a PAN-PRD coalition candidate for the state legislature.

Before dawn on Sunday, unknown assailants set fire to the house of a PAN mayor in Acajete, the party said.

Elsewhere, a PAN state lawmaker said his assistant was snatched from his home by masked men who held him for several hours and beat him.

In another incident, the PAN said armed assailants stole computers from a candidate's headquarters.

The opposition also said people received anonymous text messages warning them to not vote, while election officials said several people wielding baseball bats struck voters and tried to break ballot boxes in one town.

Pena Nieto had said earlier in the day that the elections were taking place in "an atmosphere of great civility."

Veracruz has been run since 2010 by the unpopular Governor Javier Duarte, whose administration has been marred by drug violence and the killings of 18 journalists.

The campaign was marked by mudslinging, with Yunes Landa accusing his cousin of being a "pervert," a reference to pedophilia allegations against Miguel Angel Yunes, which he denies.

Their other rival, Cuitlahuac Garcia Jimenez of the left-wing Morena party, also claimed to be leading the vote.

Victory for Morena would boost two-time failed presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who founded the movement after leaving the PRD in 2012.

Veracruz remained a PRI stronghold even after the party lost its 71-year grip on the presidency in 2000. Pena Nieto returned the PRI to power in 2012.

Footballer's kidnapping

Another PRI stronghold getting attention is Tamaulipas, where the PRI and PAN exchange accusations of bowing to pressures from drug cartels.

The Gulf and Zetas criminal gangs have caused fear across the northeastern state.

In 2010, PRI gubernatorial candidate Rodolfo Torre Cantu was assassinated. His brother, Egidio, replaced him and was elected.

The election was rocked by last week's kidnapping of football player Alan Pulido, a striker with Greek club Olympiakos who managed to fight off a kidnapper and call police just 24 hours after his abduction.