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 Editorials | Issues | October 2006 
López Obrador Power in Doubt as Party Loses in Home State
 Monica Campbell - Copley News Service
| | Before Sunday's election, López Obrador told reporters, “If the PRI wins Tabasco, then our adversaries will laugh at us and say that we even lose in our own land.” |
The power of defeated presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador's political project is now in question with his party's candidate losing a state gubernatorial race that was considered a test of the leftist politician's influence.
Yesterday, with more than 95 percent of the vote counted in Tabasco state, Andrés Granier of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, had 53 percent to 43 percent for César Raúl Ojeda of López Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.
López Obrador campaigned heavily for Ojeda, betting that his presence in Tabasco – his home state – would result in a win for the PRD candidate.
After narrowly losing the July 2 presidential election, López Obrador held massive rallies in Mexico City in protest of what he considered a fraudulent vote.
He took increasingly radical measures, such as setting up protest camps in downtown Mexico City, as he built a movement to challenge the election's winner, Felipe Calderón of President Vicente Fox's National Action Party.
Yet López Obrador misjudged his influence over voters in Tabasco, as well as the popularity of Ojeda, a hotel mogul who already had lost two Tabasco gubernatorial elections. Ojeda also was seen as a key player when it came to organizing post-presidential election street protests, which some Mexicans viewed as extreme.
Before Sunday's election, López Obrador told reporters, “If the PRI wins Tabasco, then our adversaries will laugh at us and say that we even lose in our own land.”
George Grayson, a professor of Latin American politics at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, said of López Obrador: “A lot of air has escaped from his balloon since July's election. His claim of being Mexico's legitimate president is undermined if he can't carry his home state.”
Ojeda claimed that Granier, former mayor of Villahermosa, bought votes and committed other irregularities. The PRD also said members of Tabasco's state police force wrongfully jailed Ojeda supporters.
“Mexico is having a democratic setback that started in July and has been snowballing,” said Ojeda, referring to fraud allegations in the presidential vote. He said he would present evidence to electoral authorities.
The PRI denied wrongdoing and accused the PRD of ordering armed thugs to harass PRI supporters.
Confident that Granier's victory will not be overturned, the PRI began spinning the Tabasco race as a sign of the party's revival after its presidential candidate, Roberto Madrazo, finished third.
Both the PRD and the PRI are being slammed for carrying on a campaign in Tabasco stained with some of “the worst political practices” from Mexico's past, the newspaper El Universal said in an editorial yesterday.
The newspaper noted that gifts, including bicycles and roofing materials, were allegedly being offered to voters in exchange for their support at the polls. Such practices were commonplace during the PRI's 71-year rule, which ended with Fox's victory in 2000.
Monica Campbell can be reached at moni.campbell@gmail.com. |
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