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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | November 2005 
Of 3 Presidential Candidates, None is a Clear Front-Runner
 S. Lynne Walker - Copley News
| | The presidential race came into sharper focus last week after the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, became the last of the three major parties to chose its candidate - Roberto Madrazo. (AP/Eduardo Verdugo) |
Mexico City – Mexico's 2006 presidential election could boil down to this:
Will voters make the safe choice and vote for President Vicente Fox's conservative party, which has brought them six years of economic and political stability? Or are Mexicans so disillusioned with Fox's failure to deliver on campaign promises that they might choose a leftist president?
The presidential race came into sharper focus last week after the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, became the last of the three major parties to chose its candidate – veteran Tabasco politician Roberto Madrazo – in a primary.
Many political analysts say the PRI is so fractured by internal fighting over the nomination that Madrazo has no chance of winning the July 2 election. Others say it is too early to count him out.
On Friday, the national teachers organization, which is Mexico's largest labor union and a longtime PRI backer, said it would not support Madrazo.
"What we want is reform," said teachers leader Elba Esther Gordillo, herself a powerful PRI figure, who has a second home in Coronado.
She has fiercely battled Madrazo over her support for Fox's reform proposals.
Madrazo faced political unknown Everardo Moreno in the PRI primary. Madrazo's main challenger, Arturo Montiel, dropped out of the race amid allegations of improper property and bank transactions involving millions of dollars. Montiel accused Madrazo of leaking the information.
The primary drew a low turnout for the PRI, which says it has at least 9 million party loyalists. Fewer than 3 million cast ballots, leaving PRI poll workers looking like forlorn Maytag repairmen.
"There is no interest because it is the PRI and because of its candidates," Sebastián Pérez said as he sold tacos from a basket on the back of his bicycle at a Mexico City street corner.
None of the three presidential candidates is expected to win a majority of the votes. Madrazo will face longtime rival, former Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, and Felipe Calderón of Fox's National Action Party, or PAN.
A public opinion survey released this week by the polling firm Consulta Mitofsky showed López Obrador leading with 34.8 percent. Madrazo had 30.4 percent and Calderón emerged a surprisingly strong third with 28.8 percent. The margin was so slim that Mitofsky called it a statistical tie.
"Everybody thought the story was already written – that López Obrador was going to win. Felipe has been the surprise," said Juan Zavala, an old political hand who is working with Calderón. "This is going to be a very different presidential campaign."
Despite Madrazo's second-place showing, analysts said he appears to be losing support. "Madrazo seems to slipping in the north. He may be slipping in the south. And Mexico City won't even give him two digits," political analyst Federico Estévez said. "Madrazo has dealt himself a losing hand. The PRI is falling apart and Madrazo has no one to blame but himself."
The presidential race appears to be turning into a contest between López Obrador and Calderón, political analyst Lorenzo Meyer said.
López Obrador is a 52-year-old widower who portrays himself as a figure of peaceful resistance. His critics, however, call him a populist who woos voters with popular – but expensive – government programs.
As mayor, López Obrador renovated Mexico City's historic downtown with the help of billionaire Carlos Slim and Cardinal Norberto Rivera. López Obrador also gave a modest monthly stipend to elderly and disabled residents and founded the University of Mexico City.
López Obrador was president of the Tabasco state PRI before he broke with the party and lost the 1994 Tabasco governor's race to Madrazo.
Is López Obrador a "radical radical? Not so much," political analyst José Antonio Crespo said. "He has worked with businesspeople. He is sufficiently pragmatic to not lean too far left but to stay closer to the middle."
Calderón, 43, is a lawyer and a seasoned politician. Although he lost a race to become governor of Michoacan state, he was twice elected to Congress and served nine months as Fox's energy minister.
"He is a good politician. He knows how to negotiate," Meyer said.
Calderón's biggest hurdle is overcoming "disillusionment with the Fox government," Meyer said. "The PAN is going to argue that the Fox government is not the PAN's government. But for many Mexicans, Fox and the PAN are the same thing."
Madrazo, 53, plans to fight his opponents by hitting the campaign trail and deploying the party's still-intact political machinery, which has succeeded in winning several governors races in recent months.
Madrazo said he will travel to every one of Mexico's 31 states over the next few weeks, giving special attention to vote-heavy Veracruz and Baja California.
The PRI also hopes to form an alliance with another political party, like the Labor Party or the Green Party, which joined forces with the PAN to help Fox win the presidency.
Madrazo's message is that the PRI learned a hard lesson from its defeat in the 2000 election.
"Mexico has changed. We have to understand that and act accordingly," he said. "The PRI has to have a new political culture for a new Mexico."
S. Lynne Walker: slwalker@prodigy.net.mx |
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