Mexico Trucker Online

MEXICO CITY – A campaign commercial likening Mexican presidential front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is threatening to worsen already chilly relations between the two countries.

On Wednesday, Mexican President Vicente Fox said through a spokesman that “the electoral process is only Mexicans’ business.”

“No country can intervene in the election,” spokesman Ruben Aguilar said, responding to Chavez’s complaints that images of him were being used to attack Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who leads public opinion polls ahead of the July 2 presidential election.

“The Mexican right is using television spots … to try and stop the rise of the Mexican left and of its presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador,” Chavez said earlier this week.

Fox is barred from seeking re-election and leaves office in December. Lopez Obrador is running with a consortium of leftist parties against two other major candidates, one of them former Energy Secretary Felipe Calderon of Fox’s conservative National Action Party.

The ad, which concludes by flashing the National Action Party’s name, features a video clip of Chavez threatening his Mexican counterpart. It then cuts to Lopez Obrador telling Fox to “shut up, citizen president” during a recent campaign stop.

Aguilar said Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute would analyze Chavez’s comments “to see if there was intervention and interference in the electoral process by someone who should not interfere.”

He added that the Foreign Relations Department was considering whether to respond directly to Chavez or his government.

Venezuela and Mexico have been embroiled in a diplomatic spat since last fall’s Summit of the Americas in Argentina, when Fox criticized Chavez for opposing a U.S.-backed Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Chavez responded by calling Mexico an “ally of the empire,” for supporting a measure endorsed by Washington. During his television show days later, he made the threats that appear in the campaign commercial, warning Fox: “Don’t mess with me, sir, because you’ll get stung.”

Those comments helped prompt both countries to withdraw their ambassadors in November and sever all but trade relations.

Last week, Venezuelan Foreign Secretary Ali Rodriguez accused the Mexican government and news media of promoting a “sustained campaign” to discredit and embarrass Venezuela.