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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | June 2006 
Family Scandal Stains Mexican Conservative Hopeful
 Catherine Bremer - Reutors
| | Mexican presidential candidate Felipe Calderon, of the National Action Party (PAN), speaks to the Associated Press on his private bus after a campaign stop in San Jose del Rincon, Mexico, Friday, June 9, 2006. Calderon, who represents the party of current President Vicente Fox, is locked in a tight race with Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) as the country's July 2 elections near. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) |
Three weeks before Mexico's presidential election, a scandal over a brother-in-law accused of dodging taxes on ill-gotten earnings is tarnishing conservative candidate Felipe Calderon's squeaky clean image.
Calderon, of the ruling National Action Party, or PAN, is tied in first place in opinion polls with leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, after a campaign that put strong emphasis on his "clean hands" in a country stained with corruption.
But Mexico now is full of talk of Calderon's "uncomfortable brother-in-law" after Lopez Obrador accused Calderon in a live television debate of awarding his wife's brother contracts while he was energy minister. Lopez Obrador also charged the businessman did not pay the proper taxes.
Calderon has repeatedly denied any misconduct.
The scandal gathered pace on Friday as Calderon's brother-in-law, Diego Zavala, filed a legal complaint against Lopez Obrador for defamation, and Lopez Obrador sent three cardboard boxes of alleged evidence to his rival's campaign headquarters in a media stunt to highlight the affair.
"The charge is for defamation given the gentleman has not apologized. He needs to prove what he alleges," Zavala told reporters.
Calderon called his archrival a liar, telling Reuters on Thursday, "What Lopez Obrador said about me giving contracts is a lie, a big lie and someone who lies is a liar."
Calderon's energy advisor, Ernesto Cordero, said the charge appeared to relate to two software licenses bought by state-run oil monopoly Pemex in the mid-1990s that were renewed during Calderon's time in government. "They are contracts that don't go through him," he told Reuters.
A separate Calderon aide said the boxes delivered by Lopez Obrador's team were "a farce" and proved nothing, because they did not contain a single document signed by Calderon.
SERIOUS CHARGES
The election campaign has been full of barbs and opponent-bashing, but this week's charges are the most serious since the PAN government tried to knock Lopez Obrador out of the race in a legal dispute over a hospital access road he authorized as Mexico City mayor.
Lopez Obrador charges that Zavala's technical consulting company, Hildebrando, earned more than $200 million from contracts pushed his way during Calderon's time in the government and says he did not pay the correct taxes on those earnings.
Calderon -- who was energy minister from September 2003 until May 2004 -- on Thursday gave Lopez Obrador 24 hours to produce evidence to back his claim, made during Tuesday's debate between the five main candidates.
He left it up to his brother-in-law to deny the tax fraud allegation, however, saying: "This is an issue that I'm sure he will clarify."
"I of course know him, he is an honest man who complies with his obligations but I have no reason to get into clarifying whether he paid taxes or not," Calderon said.
Calderon has made much of the fact that he is a clean politician who would mark a change from Mexico's corrupt past.
The PAN came to power in 2000, ending 71 years of one-party rule widely seen as riddled with nepotism and graft.
Lopez Obrador himself was bruised in 2004 by videotapes showing party allies receiving cash from a businessman. That scandal loomed again this week when gunmen shot at the jailed businessman's family after he threatened to release more tapes.
(Additional reporting by Alistair Bell, Greg Brosnan and Miguel Angel Gutierrez) |
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