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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | March 2008 
Alejandro Encinas Claims Party Leadership Win
 Miguel Angel Gutierrez & Catherine Bremer - Reuters
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| | Alejandro Encinas | | |
Mexico City - A leftist firebrand who narrowly lost Mexico's 2006 presidential election took a step toward a political comeback on Monday when a close ally claimed victory in the main opposition party's leadership race.
Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's candidate Alejandro Encinas declared himself the victor and initial results gave him a lead of more than 3 percentage points in Sunday's vote to lead the Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD.
Encinas, former mayor of Mexico City, vowed the party would continue refusing to recognize the government of conservative President Felipe Calderon, who defeated Encinas's mentor Lopez Obrador in an election leftists say was tainted by fraud.
His election win would bolster a new campaign of street protests by Lopez Obrador - who jammed Mexico City with sit-in camps after the 2006 election - against government proposals to allow private partnerships in the state-run oil sector.
"We will be firm defending our ideals through peaceful civil resistance," Encinas said.
A PRD spokesman said preliminary results with 35 percent of polling stations counted gave Encinas 43.98 percent against 40.60 percent for moderate rival Jesus Ortega, in line with exit polls. The final result is due on Wednesday.
Encinas's victory will be read as proof of strong party support for Lopez Obrador, who calls himself Mexico's "legitimate president" despite an election tribunal confirming Calderon's election win by less than 1 percentage point.
It will set the party on a more radical path ahead of 2009 congressional elections, and raises the chances of Lopez Obrador having another shot at the presidency in 2012.
It will also strike a blow to Calderon's most ambitious reform attempt yet as analysts expect Encinas to pull PRD lawmakers out of a congressional debate on allowing private oil alliances while spurring Lopez Obrador's protests against an idea the left says is tantamount to privatization.
"He's going to marginalize more liberal groups and fortify the strategy of unsettling the government," analyst Marcela Bobadilla at Mexico's IMEP think tank said this week.
STRONG PASSIONS
Encinas was Mexico City mayor in 2006 when Lopez Obrador had thousands of supporters camp out to back his fraud claims.
Lopez Obrador has scheduled a big rally for Tuesday in Mexico City's central Zocalo square to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Mexico's 1938 oil industry expropriation.
He has threatened to ramp up the protests to blockade roads and airports at a later date.
The former indigenous rights activist has seized on an issue that stirs strong passions to drive his political comeback. Half the country opposes private investment in oil, recent polls show.
Calderon is due to unveil an energy reform bill this spring, but with Encinas heading the PRD, "they may not even present it," said political analyst Carlos Sirvent.
Lopez Obrador angered the government this month by accusing Interior Minister Juan Camilo Mourino of graft. Congress plans to investigate the minister, a close Calderon ally who was appointed to boost the chances of an oil reform.
The PRD was created around 20 years ago as opposition grew to seven decades of one-party rule that ended with conservative Vicente Fox's 2000 election victory.
The outcome of the 2006 election split the party into moderates and backers of the more radical Lopez Obrador. |
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