In Mexico, Junkyard Dogfight for Presidency

Mud Flies Ahead of Vote Seen as Democracy Test

MEXICO CITY -- The race for Mexico's presidency has featured mudslinging, backstabbing, revelations of a questionably obtained Miami penthouse, videotapes of cash-filled suitcases and allegations of communist leanings. All this before the campaign has even officially begun -- and with the election almost seven months away.

Political analysts predict the mud will continue to fly until the vote in July, with three major candidates in a virtual dead heat to succeed Vicente Fox in a contest that many view as a crucial test of Mexico's democratic progress.

Fox's watershed election in 2000 broke the 71-year rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. This time, a candidate from his National Action Party (PAN) is competing against rivals from both the PRI and the center-left Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD).

All three are trying to position themselves as the man to move Mexico's economy ahead, even if they have to stoop to personal attacks in the process.

"Now we have a democracy, and people are interested in having a better standard of living," said Sergio Sarmiento, a political columnist. "The big question in 2006 is whether we will get the reforms to make the economy more competitive."

During his tenure, Fox has managed to stabilize the economy, keep inflation low and reduce poverty slightly. But he was unable to carry out tax, labor and energy law reforms that experts say are essential to bringing economic growth and foreign investment to a country where 40 percent of the 106 million residents live in poverty.

At this point, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, 52, the left-wing former mayor of Mexico City and past president of the PRD, sits atop public opinion surveys by a slight margin among likely voters and is in a statistical tie with his competitors -- Felipe Calderon, 43, of the PAN and Roberto Madrazo, 53, of the PRI -- among the general populace.

Last spring, Lopez Obrador's opponents tried to strip him of his legal immunity as mayor so he could be indicted for ignoring a court order in a minor legal dispute. An indictment would have prevented him from running for president, and the move was widely viewed as an attempt to remove the favorite from the race before it began. Instead, the controversy boosted his name recognition, and his favorability ratings remain high.

But Calderon has also been rising in the polls since he won his party primary in October. The tough-talking lawyer, who was energy secretary under Fox, holds a master's degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Calderon made his way up through the PAN to become party president at 33. He is the least- known candidate, but he does not appear to have been seriously tainted by widespread public disappointment in Fox, who came to be viewed as an ineffective leader.

Running just behind in the polls is Madrazo, whose family history is intertwined with the PRI. Like Calderon, he is a lawyer who studied in the United States and became president of his party. But his political past is more clouded. In 1994, he defeated Lopez Obrador to become governor of Tabasco state but faced allegations of illegal over-spending and vote- buying before the election. Ernesto Zedillo, then Mexico's president, asked Madrazo to step down, but he refused. So Lopez Obrador and his supporters formed a blockade around the statehouse that lasted for weeks and brought the government to a standstill.

With the election so far away and the race so close, political analysts agreed that none of the three candidates should be counted out. They predict a messy, dramatic campaign season characterized by a scramble to forge coalitions with four minor parties, a rash of expensive media ads and constant rhetorical attacks.

Already, the race has been tarred by allegations of ill-gotten wealth. Last spring, two of Lopez Obrador's aides and other PRD members were caught on videotape negotiating with businessmen and accepting suitcases reportedly filled with cash. Madrazo won his party primary after his main opponent dropped out following reports that he had made a fortune while in public office and owned a luxury apartment in Paris. Since then, Mexican newspapers have reported that Madrazo owns a million-dollar penthouse in Miami under a front name and four other expensive residences.