Mexico's PRI wins victory in key state
Mexico's main opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won elections in the country's biggest state on Sunday, exit polls showed.

The victory lifted the party's hopes for the 2006 presidential election.

A poll for the Televisa television network gave PRI governorship candidate Enrique Pena 48 percent of the vote in the State of Mexico.

President Vicente Fox's National Action Party (PAN) and the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) were tied on 26 percent, the poll said.

"The tendency of the vote favors Enrique Pena," Televisa said.

Another exit poll, by the TV Azteca channel, gave Pena an even larger victory, with 50 percent of the vote.

Voting went peacefully in the State of Mexico, where turnout was about 50 percent.

The PRI, which ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century, lost the presidential election in 2000.