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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | June 2006 
Calderon Warns of Obrador Horror Show
 Lorraine Orlandi - Reuters
| | Felipe Calderon, presidential candidate for the National Action party, waves during his campaign closing rally in Mexico City's Azteca stadium June 25, 2006. (Daniel Leclair/Reuters) |
The conservative ruling party presidential candidate, slightly trailing in polls a week before the vote, warned on Sunday his leftist rival would cast Mexico into a "horror movie" of debt and division.
Felipe Calderon's attack, labeling front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador a divisive free spender who threatens national stability and even Mexico's young democracy, set the tone for a final week of campaigning in a close and bitter contest.
"We've seen this movie before," Calderon told as many as 100,000 supporters who turned Mexico City's giant Azteca football stadium into a roaring sea of the party's blue, orange and white colors.
"It's a horror movie that cost Mexicans dearly."
Calderon was referring to drastic peso devaluations, rocketing inflation and economic crisis triggered in the past by populist spending programs.
He likened Lopez Obrador to the autocratic presidents during Mexico's seven decades of one-party rule last century.
"This July 2 we will decide between a democratic project and one of intolerance and the same authoritarianism we left behind," Calderon said.
The race for the July 2 election remains tight, and Lopez Obrador now has a slight lead over Calderon, a lawyer and economist with a Harvard degree.
Upbeat in a blazer and button-down shirt despite the searing heat at what was billed as his campaign's grand finale, Calderon predicted a comfortable victory.
Pollsters say a substantial bloc of voters remain undecided in a contest spiced with vitriolic barbs among the contenders.
Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who had long been seen as the presidential favorite, has wide appeal for his promises to lift up millions of poor people by ending two decades of free market reforms, boost welfare programs and create jobs with ambitious public works projects.
Calderon, 43, is urging voters to buck a leftist trend in Latin America and stay on the free market course which he is promising will deliver millions of jobs: "Poverty cannot be relieved with irresponsible proposals, but rather with jobs."
MIDDLE CLASS FEARS
Maripi Aboanedo, a 36-year-old aerobics teacher attending the rally, said she fears Lopez Obrador would run up inflation and debt and exacerbate class strife if he won.
"The middle class is not part of any of Lopez Obrador's proposals," said the mother-of-two from the industrial city of Queretaro.
Aggressive ads that painted Lopez Obrador as an irresponsible populist who would shake Mexico's economic stability buoyed Calderon's campaign earlier this year.
Lopez Obrador hit back this month with accusations that Calderon's brother-in-law illegally received energy contracts while Calderon was President Vicente Fox's energy secretary.
No wrongdoing has been proven, but Calderon has slipped behind in most polls.
While the race looks like a battle between the two men, third-placed candidate Roberto Madrazo has gained ground in recent weeks.
His Institutional Revolutionary Party ruled Mexico for 71 years until it was toppled by Fox in 2000. The incumbent, who is from Calderon's National Action Party, is barred by the law from running again.
Campaign volunteer Blanca Lopez, 18, said she expected Calderon to win, but acknowledged it would be a photo finish.
"If we win, it will be very close," she said. |
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