Populist left-winger becomes Mexican poll frontrunner

James Hider, Queretaro, Mexico
June 26, 2006

TO some he is a dangerous revolutionary, a fellow traveller of the Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez who will plunge Mexico into huge debt. To others, he is a Robin Hood with the charm of Bill Clinton, come to deliver the masses from poverty and glaring inequality.
But to Mariela Rodriguez Montoro, a 54-year-old psychologist waiting in a throng of supporters, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the left-wing former mayor of Mexico City and frontrunner in this weekend's presidential election, is just downright hot.

"Ooh, he's so handsome," she cooed as the stocky, grey-haired idealist, who has revamped Mexico's political landscape, stepped out on stage in Queretaro, 190km north of the capital.

The casual slacks and plain shirt Lopez Obrador wore on the podium were another mark of the common touch that has, together with promises to address the country's yawning wealth divide, made him the darling of the poor, but also of many in the middle classes who are tired of Mexico's constant parade of ragged beggars pestering them for handouts.

The vote is tense, the stakes high and the candidates running almost neck and neck, with Lopez Obrador -- usually known by his acronym, Amlo -- edging ahead in the opinion polls last week.

On Sunday, when about 70 million Mexicans are eligible to vote, the country will decide whether to continue with the slow-moving market reforms of the ruling National Action Party (PAN), represented by a rather grey technocrat, Felipe Calderon, or to take a gamble on the radical changes promised by Amlo.

The charismatic Lopez Obrador has travelled thousands of kilometres by car between stump speeches, stopping off to attend meetings with community leaders, businessmen and supporters, while other candidates jet from rally to rally in private planes.

It is all of a piece with his hard-working, man-of-the-people image. While mayor of Mexico City, Lopez Obrador, now 52, would arrive at work before dawn, holding press conferences at 6.30am, shunning the trappings of power to arrive in an old Subaru and living in a modest apartment in an unfashionable part of town. He has also pledged to take only half of the presidential salary if he wins, which the latest polls suggest he is set to do, with 35 per cent to Calderon's 30 per cent.

The lack of frills has drawn support in a country where about half the people live in poverty and half the economy is an unregulated street market, yet which is home to some of the richest people in Latin America, including the world's third richest, Carlos Slim Helu.

What is more surprising is that "Slim", as he is known, collaborated closely with the former mayor on a big project to rejuvenate the capital's colonial centre through a mixture of public and private spending.

"We are not against businessmen as those who see us with negative eyes have been saying," Lopez Obrador tells cheering supporters. "We cannot be against those who invest and generate jobs. We are against those who traffic influence -- the corrupt."

Corruption and cronyism are the root of Mexico's many ills, his campaign manager Manuel Camacho told The Times, and they have led to the growth of monopolies that have stifled competition.

Camacho said the first big problem facing an Amlo administration would be to heal the rift opened up by the negative campaigns launched by the Calderon camp, for which he blamed the influx of expensive US political consultants.

While influenced by the US mudslinging, the run-up to elections has also been tainted by some very Mexican violence. Gunmen shot up the bullet-proof car carrying the wife of an industrialist jailed on suspicion of trying to bribe Lopez Obrador's officials to win lucrative contracts. None of the occupants, who included the industrialist's children, were hurt in the attack.

Six years ago, Vicente Fox, the PAN leader, broke 71 years of one-party rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which had long engineered elections.

With many disillusioned that outgoing President Fox has failed to live up to his promises, democracy has gone from famine to feast, with as wide a range of choice as any electorate in the world.

What Lopez Obrador is offering is a Keynesian alternative to allowing free-market reforms to slowly transform the economy. He intends to boost welfare, provide cheaper utilities to the poor and increase wages by 20 per cent. To fund this, he plans to crack down on corruption and tax evasion, and slash bureaucracy.

The Times

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