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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | June 2006 
Hot Air, Wet Pants Spice Up Mexico Election Race
 Catherine Bremer - Reuters
| | Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, presidential candidate of Mexico's left-wing Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), holds up a traditional 'Cabeza Maya' during a rally in Ocosingo in Mexico's state of Chiapas June 9, 2006. Full of colorful insults, blaring pop songs and nonsensical sparring, the campaign for the July 2 election has been based as much on personalities and petty point-scoring as policies. (Daniel Aguilar/Reuters) |
A squawking wild turkey as president, voodoo dolls, a dancing grandpa pharmacist and a nervous criminal urinating in his pants on television - welcome to Mexico's election race, as wacky as it is vitriolic.
Full of colorful insults, blaring pop songs and nonsensical sparring, the campaign for the July 2 election has been based as much on personalities and petty point-scoring as policies.
Sick of weeks of mudslinging and silliness, voters have been sticking pins in voodoo dolls of the candidates, and the Federal Election Institute has axed some political ads as too slanderous to be aired.
"It's a very basic, very crude, very coarse, very clumsy election campaign," commentator Guadalupe Loaeza told Reuters.
The battle for the presidency is the first since 71 years of one-party rule ended in 2000 and fierce competition between the three main parties has sparked flaming tensions.
Probably the oddest campaign moment yet is a TV ad by third-place candidate Roberto Madrazo showing a criminal wetting his pants out of fear for Madrazo's tough stance on crime.
"For me, it's lacking in creativity. Vulgar. It's resorting to something very childish," said Loaeza.
Among outlawed ads are spots by conservative Felipe Calderon calling his leftist arch-rival Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador a danger and linking him to Venezuela's fiery leader Hugo Chavez.
Calderon, a balding lawyer whose hairline is inked in on his campaign posters, is in a neck-and-neck race with Lopez Obrador, a crusader for the poor who dons floral garlands and tropical-style guayabera shirts.
In their latest spat, Lopez Obrador sent Calderon's campaign office huge cardboard boxes he said contained documents proving Calderon awarded his brother-in-law lucrative contracts when energy minister.
But Calderon said the boxes were a farce, empty but for a few meaningless papers. He said his rival was a liar, called him "Lopez Hablador" (Lopez Talker) and his aides "clowns."
Rhetoric has been harsh, reflecting a nation split between left and right that is still learning some of the rules of democracy.
"If the players persist in just insulting each other, they may win the contest but could not lead the country," wrote columnist Javier Oliva in daily La Jornada.
DANCING PHARMACIST
Lopez Obrador has laid into President Vicente Fox, who he says is illegally helping Calderon, dubbing him a "chachalaca" - a wild turkey known for its piercing squawk.
"He acts like a chachalaca, he screeches like a chachalaca," the leftist said, also accusing Fox of "verbal incontinence."
Keeping with the bird theme, he told supporters after a heated election debate last week that his rivals "came to eat pigeon, but what they got was a fighting cock."
Amid all the madness, frustrated voters have lobbed plastic bottles, paper airplanes and inflated condoms at candidates and even offered one, Patricia Mercado, a puff of marijuana.
Some of the most colorful campaigners cannot legally run because no political party will back them.
They include oddball magnate Victor Gonzalez, who has adopted the persona of his pharmacy chain's rotund and grandfatherly mascot, "Dr Simi," with fluffy white hair and mustache.
Claiming more Mexican fans than Mickey Mouse, and fond of models in mini-skirts, Gonzalez hires people to wear spongy Dr Simi costumes and dance outside his pharmacies.
"I have money but I earned it honestly. I have women but I am single. The people love these things," he said recently.
Also seeking support is Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos, who gave his first live TV interview in years in his trademark ski mask and smoking his pipe to call for the overthrow of the government, whoever wins.
(Additional reporting by Miguel Angel Gutierrez) |
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