A voice for the poor grows stronger in Mexico election

MEXICO CITY -- Andrés Manuel López Obrador tirelessly presses his campaign promise at rally after rally up and down the country: He'll listen and respect all Mexicans if he is elected president but ''the poor come first."

In a country where more than half the population is poor and many more feel neglected, the message is getting through. Latin America's political swing to the left appears to be on the verge of reaching the doorstep of the United States.

As the July 2 election approaches, polls this month suggest that the former Mexico City mayor and candidate of the left-of-center Party of Democratic Revolution, or PRD, is consolidating his lead, with support from about 40 percent of voters and a 10-point edge over his only two main rivals.

The son of a shopkeeper in a tiny provincial town in the swampy southeastern state of Tabasco, López Obrador went on to serve as mayor of Mexico's enormous capital from 2000 until he stepped down in July 2005 to run for president.

''He appears to stand for something transcendental, he's offering esperanza [hope]," says George Grayson, a Mexico specialist at the College of William & Mary whose book about López Obrador, titled ''The Mexican Messiah," is being printed. ''The Mexican people are looking for a savior."

Long the leading contender, the 52-year-old López Obrador, who is already on his ninth campaign tour of the country, gained even more momentum this year as the other two main candidates began to fade, or failed to take off.

The future looks particularly bleak for Roberto Madrazo, 54, the candidate of the once-invincible Party of Institutional Revolution, or PRI, who some polls now give just 25 percent.

The PRI monopolized presidential power in Mexico from 1929 to 2000 with the help of populist policies, selective repression, and electoral fraud. Rampant corruption and periodic economic crises chopped away at its authority the last few decades. The old ruling party is now facing possible collapse as hope wanes of regaining power.

''Loyalty to the PRI is a pragmatic issue based on the hope of receiving benefits in return" says José Antonio Crespo, a political scientist and PRI specialist from the Mexico City-based CIDE think tank. ''It only works when there is a real possibility of winning."

Pollsters say disillusioned PRI members are likely to migrate to López Obrador who, like almost all of the PRD's leading figures, cut his political teeth in the PRI.

Vicente Fox of the center-right National Action Party, or PAN, beat the PRI in free and fair elections in 2000. But without a majority in Congress, he failed to push through reforms during his six-year term. Mexican presidents cannot run for reelection.

The PAN's candidate, Felipe Calderón, is struggling to inject new energy into his campaign.

A free-market conservative trying to appear modern and youthful, the 44-year-old Calderón was closing the gap but seems stuck now, unable to overcome widespread public disappointment at Fox's failure to fulfill the promises of sweeping change that won him the presidency.

''All my family voted for Fox in 2000, not because they really liked him but to get rid of the PRI," says tourism student Nitzagui Maciel, the daughter of a builder. ''We're all going to vote for López Obrador this time because now we want real change."

But if Mexico is about to join the Latin American trend of electing leftist leaders -- a response to the failure of decades of fiscal austerity and free trade agreements to ameliorate poverty and share wealth more fairly -- no one is sure exactly what that might mean.

Gone are the days when the ''Latin American left" conjured up images of Marxist guerrillas and bespectacled intellectuals, and the phrase now encompasses a more eclectic group of leaders and political projects.

There is little identifiable common ground, for example, between Bolivia's new president Evo Morales -- an indigenous peasant leader with a nationalist agenda who captured the world's imagination by wearing a striped sweater to meet the king of Spain -- and Chile's first woman prime minister Michelle Bachelet, an ever-smiling single mother of European descent.

''If I had to choose one comparison I would say he [López Obrador] is closest to Kirchner," says political analyst Federico Estevéz of the ITAM think tank, referring to the Argentine president known for his mixture of populism and pragmatism. ''But it's probably best to say he is kind of midway between Lula and Chávez," the analyst adds, referring to Brazil's once-radical trade union leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez.

López Obrador's supporters hotly dispute the frequent comparison to Chávez, Latin America's highest profile and most controversial leftist, and many analysts here question it as well.

For one thing, the Mexican has shown little more than a cursory interest in foreign policy, while the Venezuelan aspires to become spokesman for long-held regional resentments toward the United States.

While Chavez railed against President Bush last weekend -- calling him everything from ''a donkey" to ''a drunkard" -- this week López Obrador stressed Mexico's ''ties of history, culture, economy, trade, and friendship" with its northern neighbor.

López Obrador has made many potentially expensive promises. He says he will extend a program, which he implemented in Mexico City, to provide monthly stipends to seniors and single mothers, and says he will kick-start Mexico's sluggish economy with major investments in infrastructure.

The costs will be covered by slashing salaries and privileges for politicians and top bureaucrats, including halving the presidential wage, and stamping out corruption, he says.

''He can't raise enough money that way," said Eduardo Romero, a bank executive interviewed during his lunch hour in a Mexico City park. Romero said he fears uncontrolled borrowing and the kind of hyperinflationary crisis remembered by all but the youngest Mexican voters. ''I am not just frightened of López Obrador, I am terrified."

Hoping to extend these and other misgivings to a wider constituency, with less than 100 days of campaigning left, Calderón and Madrazo are going negative.

Calderón's team released television spots juxtaposing statements by Chávez and López Obrador, and bandying around the word ''authoritarian."

López Obrador's popularity has weathered worse storms, including videos of his finance minister gambling away public money in Las Vegas, and a close political collaborator stuffing wads of questionable cash into an overflowing brief case.

The mayor, known for his rather austere personal lifestyle, insisted that he did not know about those improprieties and that he was the victim of a plot to discredit him. Many ordinary Mexicans agree.

''They will throw anything they can at him," said David Cervantes, putting down his shoe-shining rag as he almost shook with excitement. ''It won't stop him winning though, you'll see."