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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | March 2005 
Populist Mayor Rankles Some In Mexico
 Mark Stevenson - Associated Press
| Many have seized on the issue of populism - "populismo" in Spanish - to criticize Lopez Obrador.
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Mexico City - Mexico's political, church and business elite are expressing concern that Latin America's rising tide of charismatic leftists may soon sweep into Mexico.
The warnings are clearly aimed at Mexico City's free-spending mayor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who leads the polls for the 2006 presidential race.
"Here come the messiahs who offer the earth and the sky ... populists with magic recipes for everything," President Vicente Fox said recently. "In the end they are only cheating people and taking money away from hard working people."
But the mayor insists he's just focusing on "social justice, helping the poor."
"The little that is given to the poor, they always call that populism or paternalism," Lopez Obrador said, "and the large amounts handed out to the rich, that's development and bailout programs. That's an old trick."
What's more, Lopez Obrador's supporters say the real danger is a possible radicalization of the left if Congress uses a technicality to bar him from running in 2006.
Congress may vote to let the mayor be tried in court for a relatively trivial offense: The city allegedly was too slow to obey a court order to suspend construction of a hospital access road. In Mexico, candidates cannot run for office while facing criminal charges.
"If figures on the left are marginalized, like they're doing to Lopez Obrador, there is a risk that the left ... will go back into the hills," said novelist Carlos Fuentes, referring to the region's tradition of rural guerrilla movements.
In an October poll, about half the 2,000 people interviewed believed there would be "serious political problems" if Lopez Obrador of the left-leaning Democratic Revolutionary Party is barred from running.
Feeding off discontent with Mexico's market-oriented policies, Lopez Obrador has built a solid political base on programs like cash subsidies for the elderly, the disabled and single mothers, as well as public-works projects.
He reminds some of the most fiery populist in power in Latin America, Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez, who is a good friend of Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Church officials, and even U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, say they would have no problem with a leftist government in Mexico. But many have seized on the issue of populism - "populismo" in Spanish - to criticize Lopez Obrador.
Fox administration officials contend the mayor lacks respect for the law and could return Mexico to the instability and inflation of the 1980s.
The mayor has increased the city's debt and he sometimes appears to challenge court and legislative decisions with street protests swelled by city employees and pensioners.
He also advocates greater reliance on oil revenues and more support for domestic industry - both seen as a return to the big-government policies spurned by four consecutive Mexican presidents.
The open checkbook policies and relentless personal promotion of the mayor disturb many in a region all too familiar with "caudillos" - political bosses who used charisma, graft and handouts to stay in power.
"People can lose faith in their public institutions, turning away from both markets and democracy and toward the sort of demagoguery that has too often plagued other countries," U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza said in August.
Carlos Slim, Latin America's richest man, has supported Lopez Obrador's urban-renewal and anti-crime programs, but warned recently that "a nostalgia for populism could develop, one that could affect all the progress toward democracy we've made in the 1980s and 90s."
The head of Mexico's Employers Federation, Alberto Nunez, called for "a head-on battle against populism," and even Cardinal Norberto Rivera weighed in, saying "there is no room (in Mexico) for a populist government."
The mayor's best-known policy is the grant of 680 pesos ($60) a month to all Mexico City residents over age 70, regardless of their income.
The roughly 350,000 elderly beneficiaries can spend the money as they want, whether it's to buy food or a big-screen television, noted Asa Cristina Laurel, the city official who runs the program.
The program "has reached the elderly population, including a part of the population that, strictly speaking, doesn't need it," Laurel said, claiming it "gives dignity" to the elderly.
"These types of entitlement programs are irreversible," said Jose Muriel Delsordo, head of the Association of Mexican Actuarial Consultants. "They will grow, and will have to be paid for by future generations." |
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