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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2006 
Conservative Leads Mexico Election Race Poll
 Reuters
| | Presidential candidate Felipe Calderon, right, speaks with supporters in Mexico City, Mexico. (Reuters/Mario Castillo) |
Mexico City Mexican conservative presidential candidate Felipe Calderon had a 4-point lead in an opinion poll published by the El Universal newspaper Monday, the latest survey to show him overtaking his leftist rival.
Calderon, from President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, was at 39 percent, up from 34 percent in an El Universal poll a month ago. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist former mayor of Mexico City, had been in the lead but dropped three points to 35 percent, the poll showed.
Lopez Obrador had long been ahead in the race for the July 2 election but Calderon has surged in all major polls (MEXPOLL) in recent weeks after a strong performance in a televised presidential debate and aggressive campaign ads accusing his rival of being a populist who would ruin Mexico's economy.
The leftist's rivals have also linked him to a peasant riot in a town near the capital two weeks ago, a charge Lopez Obrador strongly denies.
The election campaign has turned nasty since Calderon's team began attacking Lopez Obrador, who promises to give priority to Mexico's millions of poor if elected.
The leftist has angrily accused Fox, who cannot stand for re-election, of illegally backing former energy minister Calderon's campaign. He lashed out at Fox and his party again Monday.
They were supposed to be decent people. They have shown themselves to be real liars, pure liars, Lopez Obrador said on his television show.
He dismissed the recent opinion polls as part of a campaign by the media and big business to undermine him.
Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party came third in Monday's poll, down 4 points at 21 percent.
El Universal said Calderon's rise in opinion polls was helped by independent voters who do not support any of the three parties switching to him from Lopez Obrador.
El Universal interviewed 1,500 people between May 5-8 for Monday's poll of probable voters, which had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points. |
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