Mexico’s leftist says “indestructible,” party gains

By Noel Randewich

ECATEPEC, Mexico (Reuters) – The leftist leading Mexico’s
presidential race boasted on Sunday he was “politically
indestructible” against growing criticism, and his party won
ground in local elections in a key state.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who leads opinion polls by up
to 9 percentage points, told supporters he was unfazed by
accusations he was an irresponsible populist and ally of
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

“They can’t touch us. When you have ideals, when you are
not moved by ambition, power or money you are politically
invulnerable,” the former mayor told a rally in the southern,
sugar-producing town of Cuautla.

“I don’t want to say you are indestructible because they’ll
start questioning that but why not say politically
indestructible?” he said.

President Vicente’s Fox’s conservative party accused Lopez
Obrador on Friday of illegally receiving aid from U.S. foe
Chavez. The leftist’s party strongly denies that.

Former President Carlos Salinas said in a speech in the
United States at the weekend that Latin America should be wary
of populist “strongmen.”

It was an apparent attack on Lopez Obrador, who often
accuses Salinas of corruption during his 1988-94 rule.

Lopez Obrador promises to give priority to Mexico’s poor if
he wins the July 2 election.

TURNING NASTY

Rhetoric has grown in the past few weeks as opponents
Felipe Calderon from Fox’s National Action Party, or PAN, and
Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or
PRI, see the leftist’s opinion poll lead narrowing slightly.

Calderon, a free marketeer, on Saturday described elections
this year as a war to stop Mexico returning to corrupt,
debt-laden governments of the past.

“The fight is with Lopez Obrador,” he said on Sunday.

Lopez Obrador’s Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD,
headed for a morale-boosting result at elections for mayors and
local deputies in the key State of Mexico on Sunday.

Results after more than half the votes were counted showed
the PRD running just behind the PRI, which has always governed
the state, on around 30 percent of the vote.

It was a marked improvement for the left since the last
similar election in 2003 when it garnered 24 percent.

As in much of the country, the PRD has traditionally been
the third force in the state, a U-shaped swathe of suburbs,
rust-belt towns and rural land around Mexico City.

Lopez Obrador had campaigned hard for more than a week
ahead of the election.

“This is going to be seen as a triumph for Andres Manuel’s
eight-day tour,” Roy Campos, of polling firm Consulta Mitofsky,
told Mexican television.

Corruption accusations against the PRI, which holds more
than half the 125 municipalities and dominates state Congress,
turned off some voters.

“We have seen the PRI’s corruption for years. We now want a
change,” Rene Espindola, a hardware merchant, said in the
gritty satellite town of Ecatepec.

Poor homes are perched on steep hills in outlying areas of
the town where there is no piped water.

Previous state governor Arturo Montiel, a one-time PRI
presidential contender, is under investigation for illicit
enrichment after newspapers accused him of owning a string of
expensive homes in Mexico, Paris and Spain.

Fox’s PAN has been strong in posh residential districts and
blue-collar areas of the State of Mexico but lagged behind in
third place on Sunday.

The federal government has not carried out promises to
create millions of jobs and strong economic growth.