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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | April 2006 
Mexican Electoral Institute Rejects Leftist Candidate's Complaint about Campaign Ads
 Associated Press
| | A man listens to a speech from behind an image of Felipe Calderon, Mexican presidential candidate for the National Action Party (PAN), during a news conference in Mexico City Tuesday, April 11, 2006. In most recent polls, Calderon remains in second place behind Former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD). (AP/Gregory Bull) |
Mexico City – Mexico's top electoral agency dismissed complaints by front-running leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador against “negative” campaign ads aired by one of his rivals, ruling on Thursday the ads were an acceptable part of the campaign.
Lopez Obrador holds a lead in most polls on the July 2 presidential elections, and rival Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party has focused many of its ads on criticizing the front-runner.
Mexican electoral law prohibits ads that defame, slander or insult a candidate, play on personal or racial characteristics, or incite viewers to commit violence.
The Federal Electoral Institute ruled unanimously that none of the ads in question had done any of those things.
“There is no indication that these (ads) contained inflammatory, slanderous or defamatory phrases,” the institute wrote in a press statement. “Rather, these expressions fall within the realm of political criticism of a public figure.”
In one of Madrazo's ads, people are quoted as saying Lopez Obrador is “afraid,” because the former Mexico City mayor decided to participate in only one of two planned debates.
Lopez Obrador's supporters have also accused the candidate Felipe Calderon of slander in his spots.
Some of Calderon's ads have depicted Lopez Obrador as intolerant, radical or prone to piling up the public debt.
The institute has yet to rule on this complaint. |
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