Mexican union boss Alcaine re-elected in disputed vote

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (Reuters) -- Union boss Leonardo Rodriguez Alcaine has been elected to a fourth term as head of the electricity workers' union (SUTERM) in a vote that his opponents have called dirty, Mexican newspapers reported Saturday.

Alcaine, who also heads the powerful Mexican Workers' Confederation (CTM), won the ballot on Friday amid scuffles between his opponents and security staff.

Both the El Universal and Reforma daily newspapers carried front-page photos of Alcaine opponents ripping up money allegedly handed out by the 60,000-strong electricity workers' union to voters to persuade them to vote for Alcaine.

The papers condemned Alcaine's re-election as a return to the corrupt old style of voting in Mexico.

The CTM, with 10 million affiliated workers, is one of the last bastions of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has ruled Mexico for 71 years. It lost a July 2 presidential election to Vicente Fox, of the conservative National Action Party.

For the past seven decades, the PRI has worked closely with union bosses, who in return for virtual autonomy, kept unions on a short leash.

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