Jorge Hank Rhon - After The Election

After The Election

After the elections, the PAN attempted to nullify the election due to several irregularities. Every claim by the PAN was rejected by the Baja California State Electoral Institute. The PAN then appealed before the Federal Electoral Tribunal which on November 14, 2004 rejected PAN claims to invalidate the election.

One of the claims was that Hank's campaign team distributed material criticizing Ramos, the PAN candidate. The PAN representatives presented pictures of multiple fliers in a car of an alleged PRI affiliate. The TRIFE found that there was no logical link between the fliers and the assumption that there were many more and to conclude this was not an isolated case. The PAN also claimed that the website www.expedientepublico.com published material against Ramos but the TRIFE concluded that in the absence of an author for the site it was unable to conclude the author was a member of the PRI or Hank himself.

The PAN also complained that Hank used religious paraphernalia during his campaign and provided a newspaper cutout of a journalist commenting that Hank made a public invitation to attend mass. The PAN did not provide any other proof of the alleged invitation to mass and the TRIFE found that the sole commentary did not prove Hank's invitation.

Another set of allegations were based on Hank's team exceeding budget limits set by the electoral body, including radio and television spots and this set an inequitable condition for Ramos. The TRIFE noted that the PAN had a longer exposure of TV spots than the PRI and that the Baja California electoral body did not find that an alleged excess in budget would create a disadvantageous position for the PAN candidate even in the most favorable scenario for the PAN. In addition to this, the PAN did not provide costs of the television spots, only the number of them. In regards to campaign events, the PAN provided 28 copies of newspaper cutouts that appeared to contradict each other and some of the cutouts describe the same event. The PAN also provided newspaper cutouts referring to a raffle of ten Volkswagen trucks but failed to demonstrate the Institutional Revolutionary Party paid for them and should be included in campaign budgets. Audio provided by the PAN also mentions not Hank but Samuel Ramos, the PRI candidate for Mexicali, not Tijuana. Radio and television spot costs estimates lacked name and signature of the person issuing them.

The PAN also accused Hank of having an alternative financing scheme through the Cuauhtémoc Hank Foundation based on Hank's own declarations. However, the PAN did not provide any proof of these asseverations and only assumed there was an alternative financing scheme. The PAN presented a newspaper cutout describing Hank as the director of the foundation but the TRIFE did not find this proved there was a financing scheme.

The PAN also alleged that Hank had broadcast television spots before his campaign started but did not provide dates or television station. The PAN also claimed a number of calls made to the emergency line 066 in which people mentioned the presence of the "red tide" (people wearing red shirts and hats near voting booths, characteristic of Hank's campaign), but the number of calls the PAN presented was higher than those reported and in most of those calls the caller failed to provide their last name and location of the voting booths. To support their claims the PAN provided pictures of these red-hat and red-shirt-wearing individuals but the pictures were in black and white.