The next Presidential election in Mexico is in 2006, the politics is starting to heat up. The fragile Democracy which hold Mexico together might start to crumble. The two main political parties are Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Fox's National Action Party (PAN). PAN hold the Presidency and PRI controls the congress.
Institutional Revolutionary Party was describe as the prefect dictatorship, 71 years of one-party rule in till Fox's National Action Party (PAN) won the Presidential election in 2000. President Fox ran against the corrupt PRI and offered a new leadership for a country wanting change.
My hopes were high on President Fox, I wanted change in political leadership in Mexico. I supported PAN and Fox in 2000. In American politics, I am a liberal and PAN is conservative political party in Mexico. I disagreed with some economic policies of President Fox, but I did agree on this main platform. PRI is a corrupt political party and Mexico needed a true democracy.
More on the Flip
After the election, President Fox failed to lead Mexico. President Fox failed to end corruption within PRI and PAN started to become corrupt with power. This economic polices failed to pass congress, he could not build support for change. This political party lost seats in congress during the mid term elections. The Mexican people has become disillusion with President Fox.
A new voice in Mexico is raising up, the populist Mayor of Mexico City Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is running for President. Lopez Obrador has built a strong following in the capital based on his social programs, including pensions for the elderly, free school supplies and ambitious public works programs.
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Fox's National Action Party (PAN) and other elites are out to stop him.
Saving Mexico by Ruining It
Today, Mexico is a country divided. Today, the mantra of Mexico's political and economic elites has become "anybody but Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador," the mayor of Mexico City who they perceive as a dangerous, polarizing demagogue -- but who is the front-runner for the presidency in 2006.
The ruling classes fear him and what they believe he will do if he wins: nationalize, overspend, jeopardize Mexico's hard-won economic gains. They're determined to stop him. But in doing so, they are tearing apart a country where political stability cannot be taken for granted. They are undermining the democracy it took so long to achieve. They are wreaking havoc in Mexico in their attempt to save it from the left.
Mexican Leftist's Bid for Presidency at Risk
MEXICO CITY -- In a move that could ignite a political firestorm, the Congress stripped Mexico City's leftist mayor of his immunity from prosecution Thursday, possibly eliminating the leading contender from the 2006 presidential race.
Many Mexicans saw the vote, which is similar to an impeachment action by the U.S. Congress, as an underhanded political maneuver to eliminate populist Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador from running for president, a risky move in a country still struggling to evolve its democracy.
The reason behind the prosecution of Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is construction. Prosecutors claim they have pursued the case on the grounds that no one is above the law, not even the powerful mayor of the Western Hemisphere's largest city.
But he also faces prosecution in federal court for ignoring a 2001 court order to halt city construction of a hospital access road over a disputed plot of ground less than 60 yards long. Although it is not clear that Lopez Obrador ever knew of the court order won by a private landowner to stop public construction on the land, he has been targeted by federal prosecutors. The case now threatens to derail his political career.
Until Thursday, the federal attorney general could not bring a case against him because, like other high-level elected officials, the mayor enjoyed immunity from prosecution.
Now, just 15 months before the national election, the Chamber of Deputies' 360-to-127 vote to strip him of his legal shield opens the way for the Fox government to bring a felony charge of abuse of authority against Lopez Obrador.
To face political prosecution over construction of a road leading to a hospital is wrong and should not derail this candidacy for President.
The enemies of Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador are trying to portray him as the new Hugo Chavez.
The onslaught against the mayor shows that Fox has become everything he once fought against. The candidate who five years ago promised to change the status quo has now turned into its chief defender. The forceful man who promised to dismantle an unjust political system now hides behind its politicized institutions. The political outsider who campaigned to kick the PRI out of power now needs that party's votes to impeach his left-wing adversary. What's clear is that Fox fears Lopez Obrador's potential victory and what he represents more than he fears the return of the PRI.
The concerted attack on Lopez Obrador has had paradoxical effects. Before the impeachment process began, Lopez Obrador was a pragmatic leftist; now he's a radical martyr. His enemies have always believed that he would be a Mexican version of Venezuela's divisive President Hugo Chavez, but now, with blows below the belt, they are creating one.
Lopez Obrador is more confrontational than ever. His rhetoric is more incendiary, his position is more recalcitrant. Under siege, he insists on behaving as a revolutionary who divides instead of as a reformer who unites.
Lopez Obrador is not a Mexican version of Hugo Chavez and this critics are not creating one. After a corrupt PRI 70 year rule and President Fox failed presidency, what is wrong with having a so called leftist leading Mexico as President?
The prosecution of Lopez Obrador might lead to turmoil and derail the country's economic recovery.
MEXICO CITY -- The possible ouster of a leading contender from the 2006 Mexican presidential race is rattling financial markets here, with investors wary of a full-blown crisis that could derail a promising economic recovery.
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A feisty populist who leads all would-be presidential hopefuls in opinion polls, Lopez Obrador has won the admiration of millions of average Mexicans for spending on anti-poverty programs as well as for his criticism of free-market economic policies that have failed to solve Mexico's employment woes.
But those leftist leanings have alarmed many of Mexico's business and political elite, whom Lopez Obrador blames for the legal tangle that could trip up his aspirations for higher office.
The mayor has vowed to campaign from behind bars if need be. And he has called on his supporters to engage in peaceful demonstrations.
With tens of thousands of protesters expected to rally today in the capital and in cities around the nation, analysts fear the start of months of unrest that could lead to paralysis or violence.
In addition to the stock market slide, long-term bond yields have surged and the peso has declined, signs that investors are voting with their feet. Although economists say Mexico's fundamentals are sound, several major investment firms are warning clients of a bumpy ride in a nation where previous bouts of political turbulence sent the economy into a nose dive.
"I have rarely been as concerned as I am today regarding the course of political events unfolding in Mexico," said Morgan Stanley senior Latin American economist Gray Newman in a report this week. He is predicting moderate gross domestic product growth, a weaker peso and a slowdown in foreign investment "premised on a prolonged bout of political turmoil."
Is democracy at stake in Mexico?
What's really at stake is the survival and quality of Mexican democracy. Regardless of Lopez Obrador's flaws, his fate should be determined by Mexico's citizens and not by its elites. The farcical, trumped-up effort to remove him from the race violates the democratic right to support a candidate or decry him and his policies through the ballot box. Fox and his allies in the PRI should put aside their short-term political calculations and respect that fundamental right.
I agree let the people decide the direction of Mexico not the elites. It is a time for change in Mexico, this time I pin my hopes on Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
