Mexico leftist takes message to conservative north

[Judi Lynn]

Mexico leftist takes message to conservative north

Feb 18, 2006 — By Tim Gaynor

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - The front-runner in Mexico's election race pitched his message of leftist reform to roaring crowds in the conservative north on Saturday, an area where he needs to win support if he is to become president.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told followers in the industrial city of Monterrey he would transform Mexico after two decades of free-market reforms that moved it closer to the United States but widened the gap between rich and poor.
(snip)

A poll this week showed Lopez Obrador had a lead of 4.6 points over his nearest rival, Felipe Calderon, of the ruling National Action Party. Roberto Madrazo of the once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party was 10 points off the lead.
(snip/...)

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1636958

[rodeodance]

1. good for him.

[teknomanzer]

2. Man, I love whats happening in Latin America!

Power to the people!

[Peace Patriot]

3. "I am proud to be accused by those who deceived Mexico,...

...who offered change, and then defrauded the public." --Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

Words that OUR politicians should be saying whenever the Swiftboaters/Kenneth Starrs come to town!

Here's a really interesting article on Lopez Obrador from a year ago, when Vicente Fox & Co. tried to impeach him on a small bureaucratic matter involving a road to a hospital that private landowners had blocked. Don't know what happened with this Swiftboating/Starr Chamber effort, but I GUESS THEY FAILED!

That was early 2005. Lopez Obrado is still in the race, and he is going to win!

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http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0416-24.htm - by Ted Lewis (4/16/2005)


"Mexico’s fragile hold on democracy was dealt a serious blow last week when its House of Representatives voted to impeach and possibly jail the country’s leading candidate for the 2006 presidency. In 2000, when President Vicente Fox defeated the long ruling PRI party and its 70 year monopoly on power few, such as myself who was there as an election observer, would have predicted that five years later Fox would willingly join his old nemesis in a political shenanigan with such grave implications for Mexico’s democratic future and stability.

"The target of the impeachment vote, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, was, until last Thursday, the popular center-left mayor of Mexico City. Then, just hours after he announced his intention to run for president to a rally of 150,000 supporters he was stripped of his mayoral immunity. Now he may face jail for allegedly ignoring a judge’s order to halt construction of an access road to a city hospital across a contested patch of private land. That a low level administrative dispute of this sort could be parlayed into an impeachable offense reflects the backsliding of Mexican politics under President Fox.

"Fox, who was in Rome for the Pope’s funeral the day of the congressional vote, hailed the political lynching as a 'shining example to the world of law and order in action in a democracy.' In fact, what it reflects is desperation by two conservative parties so lacking confidence in their own anemic candidates and records of failure that they feel obliged to stage a pre-emptive coup 15 months before the next presidential election. Their problem now will be that Lopez Obrador has consistently led presidential preference polls for the last 18 months and he will not fade away. He is an experienced and charismatic politician who knows how to take advantage of a fight like this. His response to Fox: * 'I am proud to be accused by those who deceived Mexico, who offered change, and then defrauded the public.' * (emphasis added)

"Why do Fox and the PRI so fear Lopez Obrador that they would risk the huge protests which have already begun and the political firestorm sure to result if they jail him and disqualify his candidacy? Perhaps because they know the 'Washington Consensus' model of prosperity through trade pacts and privatization has failed to deliver the promised goods and that as a result populist and left-wing governments are being elected in unprecedented numbers throughout the hemisphere. Maybe there is a reason Lopez Obrador is so popular.

"In Mexico, the undeniable failure of free trade/privatization economic model – developed by the PRI and then championed by the Fox administration -- fuels the candidacy of Lopez Obrador who has consistently called for the re-negotiation of NAFTA and has long opposed the wholesale privatization of Mexico’s strategic resources and industries. So, rather than risk the election of someone who challenges the self-serving structures of wealth and power in Mexico, the conservatives have allied to keep Lopez Obrador from even running." (MORE - it's a great article!)

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Virtually the entire map of South America has gone "blue"--with leftist governments elected by big votes over the last several years in BRAZIL, ARGENTINA, URUGUAY, VENEZUELA and recently in CHILE (first woman president--tortured by Pinochet!) and BOLIVIA (first indigenous president). PERU will likely be next. An amazing revolution!

Key to it: TRANSPARENT elections--the result of a lot of hard work by local citizen groups, the OAS, EU election groups and the Carter Center. North Americans, TAKE NOTE!*

Now Mexico! I'm not sure what the political situation is, overall, in Central America--but Lopez Obrado's high polling numbers indicate that the leftist revolution in South America is spreading north.

Let it come here! Let it some here! :woohoo:

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*Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

[Judi Lynn]

4. Thanks for bringing forth the very dirty Fox attempt to scuttle his chance

to enter the Presidential race. They must have really been afraid of him to pull something that low. Predictably, they failed, thank god.

Always waiting for news from Peru, as well, as you mentioned. Last I heard, there was a smear campaign on Ollanta Humala going on, but there should be enough time left for the truth to come out and get him back in the lead. Without a doubt, our own right-wing has been deeply involved in trying to derail him during the campaign, too, just like Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. It's so much easier to bump them off before they take office.