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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | January 2006 
Candidate Backs Migration Accord
 Sandra Dibble - Union-Tribune
| | Mexican presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (center) greeted supporters yesterday along Tijuana's Avenida Constitución. The former Mexico City mayor has vowed to fight poverty and corruption if he is elected. (Nancee E. Lewis/Union-Tribune) |
Tijuana – With the U.S. border fence just yards behind him, the leftist front-runner for Mexico's presidency yesterday said he favors a two-pronged migration accord that seeks both the creation of jobs in Mexico and the granting of legal status to undocumented Mexicans in the United States.
“Without economic growth and job creation in Mexico, we won't be able to confront the migratory phenomenon,” Andrés Manuel López Obrador said yesterday before thousands of supporters in downtown Tijuana.
A week after the formal launching of Mexico's presidential election season, the candidate made his first border visit, promising economic development and greater social justice if he is victorious in the July 2 election.
López Obrador, 52, is running under the banner of the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD. A populist former Mexico City mayor who has vowed to fight poverty and corruption, he has been drawing much support from Mexico's struggling working class.
Supporters say he is a pragmatist who will move Mexico forward while paying attention to the elderly, weak and poor. Detractors call him a demagogue and fear his costly social programs would bankrupt Mexico.
During his Tijuana stop, the candidate spoke for more than 45 minutes, growing increasingly fervent as he addressed a mixed crowd squeezed in a column that ran down Avenida Constitución past small shops, taquerias and news stands. Supporters waved yellow party flags and carried banners urging him on.
| | The crowd showed its support for López Obrador yesterday when the candidate addressed them just yards from the U.S. border fence and called for a two-pronged accord on migration. (Nancee E. Lewis/Union-Tribune) |
“You can see that he is honest and simple and sincere,” said Francisco Saavedra, 38, a carpenter from Ensenada.
Dr. Daniel Varela, 48, a Tijuana physician, said he voted for Vicente Fox in Mexico's 2000 elections and now supports López Obrador. “We're hoping that changes don't just get stuck in the planning stages, that they become real,” Varela said.
The candidate drew applause as he spoke of his plan for a bullet train from Mexico City to the U.S.-Mexico border. To pay for his projects, he said, he would eliminate pensions for former presidents, cut salaries and privileges of high-ranking government officials, fight corruption and enforce tax collection.
At times, López Obrador's words seemed as much addressed to U.S. policy-makers as to Mexican voters. “We will persuade U.S. authorities that the best policy, between a strong economy and a weak one, is not the construction of walls, but rather cooperation for Mexico's development,” he said.
The candidate has for months been Mexico's front-runner in a three-way race among the leading parties. Felipe Calderón, who served as President Fox's energy minister and leader of the National Action Party, or PAN, has been running second in the polls; he is expected to campaign in Tijuana today.
Roberto Madrazo, former governor of Tabasco and former president of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is in third place.
In Baja California, long a bastion of the PAN, a statewide poll released by the Tijuana newspaper Frontera put Calderón in the lead with 33.8 percent. López Obrador, with 21.1 percent, was in a virtual tie with Madrazo, with 21 percent.
However, with only 2 percent of Mexico's voters, Baja California is not likely to be a key state for López Obrador's campaign. “They know perfectly well that the majority of their votes are not in this region,” said Benedicto Ruiz, a political analyst in Tijuana. “It's more the symbolic importance, and making sure that they don't overlook a single region.”
The state has been dominated since 1989 by the PAN, but voters have shown a willingness to switch parties and are difficult to categorize.
In Baja California's 2004 municipal elections, the PRI staged a stunning comeback, winning back the two largest cities from the PAN.
In 1988, a coalition of parties that later formed the basis for the PRD won the state's presidential vote. However, since its formation the next year, the PRD has been a flailing third force in Baja California.
López Obrador, who was born in a small town in the southern state of Tabasco, entered politics as a member of the PRI and served as head of the state's Indigenous Institute. He joined the PRD in 1989 and in 1996 was named president of the party. In 2000, he was elected mayor of Mexico City.
López Obrador's platform calls for food stipends for the elderly and elimination of costly pensions for former Mexican presidents.
López Obrador also says he would fight the exodus of manufacturing plants from Mexico to China, where they have been drawn by lower labor costs. He said that he would respect the North American Free Trade Agreement but that he wants to delay the lifting of Mexican tariffs on corn and bean imports, saying the measure would be devastating to millions of Mexicans.
Sandra Dibble: (619) 293-1716; sandra.dibble@uniontrib.com |
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