Mexican presidential elections:The firebrand on Bush's doorstep

Published: 15 June 2006 (The Independent)

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If the hearts of most Mexicans are beating harder in these days of early summer, it is not just because of soccer. Less than three weeks from a presidential election, they are facing a stark and potentially portentous choice: to support the candidate of the ruling centre-right PAN party of outgoing president Vicente Fox, or tack abruptly to the left with the socialist PRD party, whose charismatic, populist candidate, Manuel Andres Lopez Obrador, 52, is bringing his raucous campaign caravan into Tizimin today.

With so much at stake in a country that only saw democracy take hold fully in 2000 when Fox ended more than seven decades of single party rule, it is a race that has inevitably turned vicious, with insults and dark allegations traded daily and even a botched shooting in Mexico City involving family members of a jailed businessman claiming to have a video showing aides of Lopez Obrador accepting bribes.

Mexicans are entirely unaccustomed to political suspense of this kind. For several months, polls have shown Lopez Obrador in a dead heat with his PAN rival, Felipe Calderon. Yesterday, a new survey published in La Reforma newspaper gave the leftist a tiny lead of three points. Not too far behind in third place is the other main candidate, Roberto Madrazo, of the old PRI.

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But there is something else worth remembering about Lopez Obrador's record of managing Mexico City, that teeming metropolis of almost 20 million people. When he resigned as mayor in 2005 to run for president, his approval rating was at 80 per cent. It was not just that he gave money to the poor but also that he managed to enter into a conversation with them and arouse their passions. Even detractors will admit that in the capital, Lopez Obrador became a phenomenon who could motivate millions to march in the streets when he needed their support. Now he is casting himself as the champion of Mexico's vast lower class, while painting his rivals as representatives of a privileged and corrupt old guard.


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1018569.ece

I wonder if America could ever elect leaders like that again, or if they'll just end up getting shot by lone gunmen.

This ain't gonna make * happy. This guy might turn into another Hugo Chavez and actually help these poor people.

They already have problems with Chavez and Morales and to a lesser degree da Silva of Brazil without Obrador south of the border.