Mexico’s Calderon says election campaign is ‘war’

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The presidential candidate for
Mexico’s ruling conservative party on Saturday described this
year’s election as a war to stop the country from returning to
its corrupt, debt-laden past.

Felipe Calderon told candidates for Congress from his
National Action Party, or PAN, to prepare for a tough fight.

“This is an order. We are going to win towns and win
states. This is a war. We either push forward with change or we
return to scenarios from the past,” online newspapers quoted
Calderon as saying in a speech.

He said the main opposition Institutional Revolutionary
Party, which ruled for 71 years until Vicente Fox’s victory in
2000, would take Mexico back to corrupt government and
authoritarianism.

Calderon said left-wing front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador represented a return to overspending and deep debt.

Mexicans will also choose federal deputies and senators
when they vote for president on July 2. Most opinion polls put
Calderon in second place, behind Lopez Obrador, in the
presidential race.

Fox’s PAN complained to electoral authorities on Friday
that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was helping Lopez
Obrador’s campaign. The left strongly denied that.