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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2006 
Lagging Mexican Presidential Candidate Proposes Alliance with Rival
 Lisa J. Adams - Associated Press
| | Mexican presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) talks to the media outside ABC hospital in Mexico City. Madrazo was briefly hospitalized on last week after becoming ill but has since resumed his campaign. (Reuters/Stringer) |
Mexico City – The presidential candidate of Mexico's former ruling party, lagging in the polls, raised the possibility of a tactical alliance with a rival to combat alleged government interference in the July 2 election.
Roberto Madrazo, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, alleges that President Vicente Fox has been using the government to promote his own party's candidate, a complaint echoed by leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party.
The campaign is taking place amid “strong pressure from the federal government, which is preparing an election of state, and this forces us to change our strategy,” Madrazo said at a campaign appearance Friday in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero.
Madrazo said he was considering asking Lopez Obrador to jointly contest alleged government favoritism on behalf of Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party.
Noting that his campaign was still looking into the possibility of an alliance, he said, “We'll see. It's part of what we are analyzing. ... We have to make a renewed demand that the president of Mexico not act as campaign manager for Felipe Calderon.”
Madrazo said his campaign on Monday would file complaints with Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute alleging that the federal government has been diverting resources to Calderon's campaign, the government news agency Notimex reported.
Fox has denied aiding his conservative party and says he will respect the outcome of the election.
Fox's own election ended 71 years of rule by Madrazo's PRI. For most of that period, PRI governments openly promoted their own candidates and stifled rivals.
Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal told Mexican news media it was impossible for the government to sway the elections as it did in the past because public spending is scrutinized, national and international observers monitor the process and voters are more aware.
Asked what he thought of a potential alliance with Madrazo, Lopez Obrador responded that “the party is attending to this issue. I'm the candidate,” according to the daily newspaper El Universal.
His campaign manager, Manuel Camacho, was quoted by the Milenio newspaper as saying that a formal alliance between the two parties was “completely ruled out,” though he said representatives of the two campaigns would trade information on campaign spending by the PAN and alleged interference by the federal government.
Until recently, Lopez Obrador led all public opinion polls, at one point leading then-second-place candidate Calderon by 10 points. But several new polls show him slipping slightly behind Calderon.
Madrazo has consistently run third, alarming many members of his party, which is unaccustomed to losing elections.
A poll published Friday by The University of Miami School of Communication/Zogby International registered Calderon with 34 percent support compared to 29 percent for Lopez Obrador and 22 percent for Madrazo, whose PRI party ruled Mexico for 71 years before Fox's election in 2000. It had a margin of error of 3 percentage points. |
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