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 Editorials | Issues | April 2008 
Hitler Ad Fans Tensions Over Mexico Oil Reform Plan
 Catherine Bremer & Miguel Angel Gutierrez - Reuters
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Mexico City - A political row in Mexico over an oil reform plan intensified at the weekend as a TV ad compared a firebrand leftist leading a siege of Congress to 20th century dictators Hitler and Mussolini.
Funded by a Mexican businessman angry at a 10-day blockade of Congress by opposition left-wing lawmakers, the television ad says the antics of protest leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador are endangering democracy in Mexico.
Leftists seized Congress podiums on April 10 to block a government proposal to lower barriers to private investment in the oil sector, controlled by the state since 1938.
"Who shuts congresses? In 1933, Adolf Hitler in Germany. In 1939, Benito Mussolini in Italy. In 1973, Augusto Pinochet of Chile," it says, over grainy footage of the former Nazi leader, his fascist ally in Italy and Chile's late military dictator.
The 30-second spot was a flashback to conservative ads run in the 2006 election campaign calling the former rights activist and then presidential hopeful a danger to Mexico.
The new ad says the last person to shut down Mexico's Congress was Victoriano Huerta, an army general who briefly seized power in 1913, and then shows images of left-wing lawmakers seizing Congress podiums this month.
"Our democracy is in danger. Our peace is at risk. Mexico does not deserve this," the voice-over says.
The left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution has asked the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) to order the spot off the air, PRD deputy Cuauhtemoc Sandoval said on Sunday.
"This is doing nothing to help the discussion about energy reform," he told Reuters. "It smacks of the dirty war of the 2006 election campaign, when they put up the theory that Andres Manuel was a danger to Mexico."
Lopez Obrador infuriated President Felipe Calderon by claiming his narrow defeat in the 2006 was fraudulent and paralyzing central Mexico City with sit-in protest camps.
Concerned about increasingly heated rhetoric and street protests over the energy proposal, Calderon's National Action Party also condemned the ad and said it should be withdrawn.
A 2007 law bans individuals or companies from running political TV spots, but sponsor Guillermo Velasco said he hoped to keep his running as long as he could afford to.
Left-wingers, who say the proposed energy bill would amount to a sneaking privatization of oil monopoly Pemex, have vowed to stay put until Congress closes for the summer on April 30, unless the PAN offers a four-month debate on the issue.
(Editing by David Wiessler) |
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