Split Congress Shifts Left in Mexican Voting; Conservatives Short of Majority

Beginning of article

Byline: Robert Buckman, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

CUERNAVACA, Mexico - Whoever emerges winner of Mexico's cliffhanger presidential election will have to continue governing by consensus and deal with a divided Congress that has shifted slightly to the left but remains dominated by the conservative National Action Party (PAN).

Preliminary results from Sunday's elections for the 500-member Chamber of Deputies and half of the 128-member Senate show that the PAN has lost seats in both houses but remains the largest bloc in both chambers, although still far short of a majority.

The left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) showed significant gains in both houses, while the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was reduced to a shadow of its former dominant position. The PRI ruled Mexico for 71 years before the PAN's Vicente Fox won the presidency in 2000.

Under a complex proportional-representation formula, 200 members of the lower house are assigned and 300 members are elected directly. The Senate also has a mix of directly elected senators and those assigned according to which party carries each of the 31 states and the Federal District of Mexico City.

The Mexico City daily El Universal predicted that the PAN's …