| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico 
Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard Rules Out Alliances in 2012
 Anahi Rama & Krista Hughes - Reuters
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December 23, 2010
| | Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard smiles during a news conference at his Mexico City office December 22, 2010. (Reuters/Felipe Courzo) | |
Mexico City – Marcelo Ebrard, the mayor of Mexico City and a potential presidential candidate, on Wednesday ruled out extending an alliance between his leftist party and the ruling conservatives into the 2012 elections.
President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party (PAN) has teamed up with the left to win three state elections this year and the parties are planning a joint run in the State of Mexico gubernatorial elections in mid-2011.
But Ebrard, favored to represent the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in the presidential race, said the cooperation between the ideological foes would stop there.
"It would be unthinkable. I would not see an alliance with the right," he told reporters at his office. "This would be very difficult for the presidential elections."
The 2012 race is wide open as Mexico struggles to recover from a deep recession and spiraling violence from the drug war that has killed more than 30,000 people since Calderon took office in December 2006.
The new leader of the PAN, Gustavo Madero, has said he does not rule out alliances in the 2012 elections as the party girds for a battle with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which is putting pressuring on the PAN in opinion polls.
The PRI ruled Mexico for seven decades before being ousted by the PAN in 2000.
Ebrard, who has made waves in Mexico by legalizing abortion and gay marriage in the capital, will fight popular former Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for the PRD nomination.
Lopez Obrador lost the 2006 presidential race to Calderon by a thin margin and then disputed the result by organizing months of noisy street protests.
Ebrard, known for promoting environmental policies like bicycle-riding and public transportation in Mexico City, set up popular attractions such as urban beaches in summer and an ice skating rink in the central square in winter.
(Editing by John O'Callaghan)
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