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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2006 
Mexican Candidates Latch onto World Cup Fever
 Kieran Murray - Reuters
| | A soccer fan with the Mexican flag painted on his face looks out before the international soccer friendly match between Mexico and Venezuela in Pasadena, California, May 5, 2006. The 2006 World Cup in Germany will be in its final stages when Mexicans vote on July 2. Some say a nationalist frenzy could give the ruling party a major electoral boost if the team makes it past quarter finals scheduled just before the election. (Reuters/Lucy Nicholson) |
Mexico City – After months of selling themselves as statesmen, economists and saviors of the poor, Mexico's presidential candidates now look more like cheerleaders for the national soccer team.
The 2006 World Cup in Germany will be in its final stages when Mexicans vote on July 2. Some say a nationalist frenzy could give the ruling party a major electoral boost if the team makes it past quarter finals scheduled just before the election.
In a country obsessed by soccer, presidential candidates have little choice but to ease off on the details of tax reforms or anti-poverty programs and instead put on the national colors and ride the World Cup wave.
Felipe Calderon, the conservative ruling party's candidate, scored first on Tuesday when he met the team at its training ground in Mexico City. He joked around with the players, joined them for a group photo, put on a team shirt and gave them a long pep talk, all in front of the TV cameras.
'I believe in a Mexico of winners,' he said, comparing the team's ambitions in Germany with his own presidential bid.
'I hope that on July 2 we'll be celebrating here in Mexico the passage of the national team to the semi-finals as well as our own victory,' Calderon said, flanked by two of Mexico's best players, strikers Francisco Fonseca and Jared Borgetti.
Anxious not to be left behind, Calderon's leftist rival Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is actually much more of a baseball fan, later interrupted a live television interview to send his own message to the players
'I wish them the best and remind them that for everything in life, you just need drive. Willpower is fundamental in politics, in sport, in everything.'
A lot is at stake in the tight election race with Calderon offering more free market reforms while Lopez Obrador wants to put an end to them and instead place Mexico's poor first with massive infrastructure projects and new welfare programs.
WORLD CUP FEVER
But few doubt that interest in the campaign will be eclipsed by the World Cup once the tournament begins.
All three main parties are redesigning their strategies to run radio and TV spots around the World Cup.
'Politics will get into football because that is where the people will be. If people don't go to politics, politics has to go to football,' said political analyst Benito Nacif.
Third-placed candidate Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party that ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century plans to show Mexico's first World Cup game against Iran on huge open-air screens at party events that day.
Mexico has never made it past the quarter finals of a World Cup and is expected to face soccer giants Argentina or the Netherlands early in this year's competition if it gets past the group stage, but it has a stronger team than usual and many here expect expect it to do well.
Pollsters and campaign managers call that a 'feel-good factor' and say it typically helps the party in power.
'I think that will foster the type of mood, the type of psyche and the type of perceptions that will be favorable to Felipe Calderon,' said Arturo Sarukhan, a senior campaign aide managing Calderon's foreign policy strategy.
The opposite, however, could also happen. Mexico was knocked out of the last World Cup by the United States, a humiliation that few can forget or would like to repeat.
Candidates can also look silly by trying to make too much of their love for the game. Calderon was far from impressive on Tuesday when he tried to juggle a soccer ball at his meeting with the World Cup team. |
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