Mexico City’s cathedral was closed Monday after leftist protesters stormed into the world-renowned religious landmark, and church officials said it would not reopen until city authorities can guarantee security.Dozens of supporters of former leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel López Obrador entered the building bordering the capital’s Zocalo square on Sunday, scuffling with faithful and overturning pews.
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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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