Mexico candidate Calderon may ease up on leftist

By Alistair Bell

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s ruling party presidential
candidate, Felipe Calderon, is wary of going too far in his
attacks on the leftist front-runner in an increasingly ugly
election campaign, his top aide said.

Calderon, the conservative National Action Party candidate,
is waging a war of words with left-wing hopeful Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador, a man he accuses in television ads of being “a
danger to Mexico” who would destroy the country’s finances.

Calderon’s campaign chief, Josefina Vazquez Mota, told
Reuters the candidate will keep on criticizing Lopez Obrador,
but does not want to alienate voters with a negative campaign.

“We don’t want to go over the limits, just simply insist
that they have two different projects,” she said on Thursday
night.

“We need to be careful about timing. Be careful and
measured because it is not about pushing people into voting out
of fear or turning people off voting.”

Negative campaign ads by Calderon comparing his leftist
rival to firebrand Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have helped
cut Lopez Obrador’s once-commanding lead in opinion polls to 3
or 4 percentage points.

Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute regulator ruled on
Friday that Calderon had to modify some of his television spots
because of their aggressive tone.

Most polls show Calderon in second place.

Lopez Obrador accuses his rival of waging a “dirty war” and
says Calderon’s campaign is being openly backed by President
Vicente Fox in defiance of Mexican law that forbids presidents
from getting involved in elections.

Despite the success of his campaigning in recent weeks,
Calderon will concentrate more on pushing his policy message as
the first of two live televised debates approaches next week.

“We believe it’s time to give a lot more importance to
policy. The policies have always been there, but we should give
them much more vigor,” Vazquez Mota said in an interview.

LEFTIST REJECTS CHARGES

Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor, has fought back
against the aggressive campaign ads by branding his opponents
“chachalacas,” or screeching wild birds, and telling Fox to
“shut up.”

He vows to put Mexico’s poor first if elected but strongly
denies he is a populist and says he cannot be compared to
Chavez, the leading U.S. foe in South America.

Calderon challenged his rival to take part in a live
televised debate between some of the candidates Tuesday night,
even though the leftist says he will not turn up.

“He’s scared of debating,” Calderon told supporters at a
rally in the town of Atlixco. “If he fancies himself as a
fighter … I’ll be waiting for him on Tuesday night at 8
o’clock.”

The political noise is partly behind a 5 percent drop in
Mexico’s peso currency since early March, market analysts say.

Vazquez Mota said a Lopez Obrador government would take the
country back to the 1980s and 1990s when it suffered crippling
financial crises.

“There’s a danger of returning Mexico to the times we’ve
already gone through: to devaluation, debt, the loss of
savings, the loss of assets,” she said.

She said Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary
Party, which ruled Mexico for 71 years until Fox defeated it in
2000, was almost out of the election.

“All we have seen in the polls shows that this is
practically a two-way race and that the competition for the
presidency is mostly between Felipe Calderon and Lopez
Obrador,” Vazquez Mota said.

Despite Madrazo’s low popularity, his party still boasts a
strong organizational machine and a solid core of loyal voters.