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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | January 2006 
Obrador Seeks the Center to Regain Lead
 Mark Stevenson - Associated Press
| | Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Presidential candidate for the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, waves to supporters after registering his candidacy with federal electoral officials in Mexico City, Mexico Sunday Jan. 8, 2006. (AP/Dario Lopez-Mills) |
Mexico City – Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sought to position himself firmly as a moderate while officially registering his presidential candidacy Sunday, an apparent bid to avoid being labeled part of the rising leftist tide in Latin America.
Lopez Obrador, whose campaign slogan is "For the good of all, the poor first," is striving to regain the commanding lead he held in opinion polls ahead of the July 2 election. His advantage stayed strong until late fall, when his two more conservative rivals won their parties' presidential nominations.
"We are looking for balance in everything," Lopez Obrador said in a television interview broadcast last week. He taped the program before a Dec. 11-Jan. 18 political "truce" was declared, prohibiting all campaign statements during the holiday season. Registration ceremonies like Sunday's are an exception to that rule.
"We went from one extreme to the other," he said, referring to widespread privatizations in the 1990s of Mexico's formerly state-dominated economy. "The state was smothering ... but then we went to the other extreme."
Lopez Obrador has promised more protection for Mexican industries, but when asked about which economic model he might imitate, Lopez Obrador cited Chile – a country with a left-leaning government but largely conservative, market-oriented economic policies.
The former Mexico City mayor was unopposed for the nomination of his leftist Democratic Revolution Party. Rivals Felipe Calderon of President Vicente Fox's conservative National Action Party, and Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party – which ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000 – both won primary races to gain their nominations.
Calderon got a significant boost in polls after his primary, pulling almost even with Lopez Obrador and Madrazo.
Both rivals have launched stinging attacks against what they call Lopez Obrador's "populism," referring to handout programs he inaugurated while mayor. And Lopez Obrador's public profile has diminished since he left the mayor's office.
Lopez Obrador's party has acknowledged that the more conservative north of the country – where Democratic Revolution has traditionally been weak – will be important to winning the presidential race.
In a nod to Mexico's nominally Roman Catholic majority – and the long tradition of anticlericalism on Mexico's left – Lopez Obrador said he wanted to hold talks with church leaders, unions, and other social groups to "set new rules" and draw up new government policies.
And while many Mexicans resent the United States because of perceived mistreatment of migrants, most also feel Mexico would have little to gain by antagonizing its northern neighbor.
Leftists have won presidential elections in recent years in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia and other countries in the region, and some have become vocal critics of the United States. Lopez Obrador has said he would not have much personal involvement in foreign policy.
Lopez Obrador, whose candidacy is also supported by two smaller parties, went to lengths at a rally in December to assure voters that he is not an antibusiness radical.
"I want to make this very clear, let it be heard loud and far ... we don't have differences with businessmen," he said. "Those who invest their money and create jobs, they deserve protection, they deserve support. We don't have differences with businessmen, we have differences with corrupt people." |
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