Mexico Trucker Online Articles

Road Trip to the Presidency – AMLO

LA PAZ, Mexico — While rival parties still are choosing their candidates, populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador already was out of the gate Thursday, launching a road trip designed to keep momentum as the early frontrunner for the 2006 presidential election.

With promises to provide public-works jobs for the poor, government pensions for the elderly and better education for the nation’s youths, the former Mexico City mayor sounded more like former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt plugging the New Deal than a saber-rattling Latin American leftist, as some have branded him.

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Mexico City Mayor Resigns

MEXICO CITY — Do a Google search on “AMLO,” the initials by which the populist front-runner for the presidency is known, and you’ll get a prompt: “Did you mean: malo?” Spanish for “bad.”

Whether Andrés Manuel López Obrador — whose initials are as widely recognized here as JFK and LBJ in the U.S. — would be good or bad for Mexico is anyone’s guess.

López Obrador resigned as mayor as of today to run for president in 2006 — a move sure to kick this country’s continued experiment with democracy into high gear.

A member of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party, he has militant supporters, ardent detractors and no potential opponent on the horizon who does anywhere near as well in opinion polls.

He is preparing for a nationwide tour set to begin in early August.

“I’d bet the rent money he will be the next president,” said George Grayson, who is writing a book on López Obrador and is a Mexico expert at the College of William and Mary in Virginia.

Critics of AMLO say he spends too much time spinning “I am the victim” conspiracy theories to cover his faults, poses as a populist for political advantage and oversaw a city hall tainted with corruption.

Arriving for his last full day of work Thursday just before dawn, López Obrador was serenaded by mariachis and swarmed by at least 2,000 frenzied supporters.

Many of them were hard-core, working-class folks who clutched carnations and were grateful to López Obrador for social programs.

“Bring it all to the presidency,” one sign read.

The showing was typical. The mayor draws rock star-like receptions in this city.

“I will back him forever,” Wendy, 21, said as she and her infant son avoided drizzle.

She declined to give her last name but said López Obrador helped her family with housing and monthly disability pay for her brother.

If López Obrador is elected president, it would put a twist on the political changes that started when Vicente Fox, of the conservative National Action Party, rallied a broad coalition in 2000 to defeat the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI, which ruled like a dictatorship for more than 70 years.

Fox is finishing a six-year term and can’t be re-elected.

There also are questions about how AMLO might get along with President Bush. His leftist rhetoric worries U.S. policy-makers and business leaders who see it as part of an anti-American trend in Latin American governments. And unlike most predecessors, López Obrador doesn’t speak English.

A gray-haired widower, López Obrador, 51, has a reputation as a man of the people — a guy who rides around in a tiny economy car, awakens daily at 4 a.m. and isn’t afraid to take on Fox or the U.S. government.

In addition to pensions for the elderly and disabled, he built the second deck of a major freeway here, launched a quirky city bus system and overhauled a large city park.

He said Thursday his opponents have not been able to topple him, though they’ve tried everything — notably, releasing secretly recorded videotapes of his staffers accepting money and bringing criminal charges against him stemming from a roadway disagreement. Nothing stuck.

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Governor’s Election to be key

GUADALAJARA, Mexico — The contenders in today’s election for governor of Mexico’s largest state could be the cast from Hollywood’s latest comic book-inspired movie.

One candidate is a woman with a mysterious alter ego whose real name most people in Mexico can barely pronounce or spell. Another is a man who has cast himself as “The Ugly.” Then there is the “Golden Boy” — a hit with the ladies, who, polls suggest, is the favorite to win the election.

Even though Enrique Peña Nieto, 38, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, leads polls by margins of 16 to 20 points going into today’s vote, pollsters, pundits and political scientists across the country are paying close attention to election results in the state of Mexico, which shares the same name as the nation.

With anywhere from 8 million to 12 million registered voters, the state of Mexico election is the most important poll between now and July 2006′s presidential vote. Results will give a clear indication of what the country’s three major political parties will do — or should do — once the presidential race is officially on, say analysts.

A PRI victory will undoubtedly boost the state’s outgoing PRI governor, Arturo Montiel, who is currently battling party president Roberto Madrazo and others for the party nomination.

Perhaps this is why Peña’s propaganda was aired regularly on television stations in major cities, including Mexico City and Guadalajara — which is about 250 miles from Toluca, the capital of the state of Mexico.

“It’s clear that Montiel wants to be seen and sell the triumph of Peña Nieto as his big triumph en route to the presidential candidacy,” said Javier Hurtado, a political scientist with the University of Guadalajara.

“Montiel is going to … squeeze as much juice out of this as possible,” he said.

In a campaign where platforms were of little importance, Peña’s advertising budget has become the central issue of the election, at least for his competitors.

The Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, claims Peña has spent about $331 million pesos (more than $30 million dollars), more than 50 percent above the 216-million-peso legal limit for campaigns.
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