Ex-ruling party wins violence-scarred Mexican race

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MORELIA, Mexico (AP) -- Mexico's former ruling party won a major governor's race on Monday after a campaign marred by drug-cartel threats and violence, defeating President Felipe Calderon's sister and building momentum for its drive to take back the presidency next year.

With vote-counting almost complete, Fausto Vallejo Figueroa of the Institutional Revolutionary Party was nearly 3 percentage points ahead of Luisa Maria Calderon in the western state of Michoacan. The president's sister complained that drug gangs had threatened voters and poll watchers for her party, known as the PAN.

The PAN was seeking a symbolic victory in Calderon's home state, where he launched the assault against cartels in late 2006. The drug war has killed more than 40,000 people according to many estimates, although no official figures have been released in nearly a year.

The National Action mayor of the city of La Piedad was gunned down as he handed out campaign literature for Calderon and other candidates less than two weeks before Sunday's election. On the day of the vote, a newspaper in the city published an unsigned note threatening supporters of the party known as the PAN and blaming it for deaths in the wake of its military-led offensive against drug cartels.