Posted on 03/24/2005 5:09:19 PM PST by NormsRevenge
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico's political, church and business elite are expressing concern that Latin America's rising tide of charismatic leftists may soon sweep into Mexico.
The warnings are clearly aimed at Mexico City's free-spending mayor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who leads the polls for the 2006 presidential race.
"Here come the messiahs who offer the earth and the sky ... populists with magic recipes for everything," President Vicente Fox said recently. "In the end they are only cheating people and taking money away from hard working people."
But the mayor insists he's just focusing on "social justice, helping the poor."
"The little that is given to the poor, they always call that populism or paternalism," Lopez Obrador said, "and the large amounts handed out to the rich, that's development and bailout programs. That's an old trick."
What's more, Lopez Obrador's supporters say the real danger is a possible radicalization of the left if Congress uses a technicality to bar him from running in 2006.
Congress may vote to let the mayor be tried in court for a relatively trivial offense: The city allegedly was too slow to obey a court order to suspend construction of a hospital access road. In Mexico, candidates cannot run for office while facing criminal charges.
"If figures on the left are marginalized, like they're doing to Lopez Obrador, there is a risk that the left ... will go back into the hills," said novelist Carlos Fuentes, referring to the region's tradition of rural guerrilla movements.
In an October poll, about half the 2,000 people interviewed believed there would be "serious political problems" if Lopez Obrador of the left-leaning Democratic Revolutionary Party is barred from running.
Feeding off discontent with Mexico's market-oriented policies, Lopez Obrador has built a solid political base on programs like cash subsidies for the elderly, the disabled and single mothers, as well as public-works projects.
He reminds some of the most fiery populist in power in Latin America, Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez, who is a good friend of Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Church officials, and even U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, say they would have no problem with a leftist government in Mexico. But many have seized on the issue of populism - "populismo" in Spanish - to criticize Lopez Obrador.
Fox administration officials contend the mayor lacks respect for the law and could return Mexico to the instability and inflation of the 1980s.
The mayor has increased the city's debt and he sometimes appears to challenge court and legislative decisions with street protests swelled by city employees and pensioners.
He also advocates greater reliance on oil revenues and more support for domestic industry - both seen as a return to the big-government policies spurned by four consecutive Mexican presidents.
The open checkbook policies and relentless personal promotion of the mayor disturb many in a region all too familiar with "caudillos" - political bosses who used charisma, graft and handouts to stay in power.
"People can lose faith in their public institutions, turning away from both markets and democracy and toward the sort of demagoguery that has too often plagued other countries," U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza said in August.
Carlos Slim, Latin America's richest man, has supported Lopez Obrador's urban-renewal and anti-crime programs, but warned recently that "a nostalgia for populism could develop, one that could affect all the progress toward democracy we've made in the 1980s and 90s."
The head of Mexico's Employers Federation, Alberto Nunez, called for "a head-on battle against populism," and even Cardinal Norberto Rivera weighed in, saying "there is no room (in Mexico) for a populist government."
The mayor's best-known policy is the grant of 680 pesos ($60) a month to all Mexico City residents over age 70, regardless of their income.
The roughly 350,000 elderly beneficiaries can spend the money as they want, whether it's to buy food or a big-screen television, noted Asa Cristina Laurel, the city official who runs the program.
The program "has reached the elderly population, including a part of the population that, strictly speaking, doesn't need it," Laurel said, claiming it "gives dignity" to the elderly.
"These types of entitlement programs are irreversible," said Jose Muriel Delsordo, head of the Association of Mexican Actuarial Consultants. "They will grow, and will have to be paid for by future generations."
He reminds some of the most fiery populist in power in Latin America, Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez, who is a good friend of Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Church officials, and even U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, say they would have no problem with a leftist government in Mexico. But many have seized on the issue of populism - "populismo" in Spanish - to criticize Lopez Obrador.
Chavez is a thug, nothing more. Calling him a populist? what a joke.
On second thought, clinton was a populist too, huh? ;)
They'd be welcome.
As long as he is for the poor, lets hit him up for some kind of trade, a barrel of oil a day, for each and every illegal in this country, or better yet 10.
I'd say a Communist government would only run their country into the ground, but Mexico's already there...
Actually, Ronald Reagan was also a populist. I'm a U.S. resident of Mexico City, and have to admit Lopez Obrador and his party have done an excellent job of improving life in the city. His party is "leftist" but they partner with business (Carlos Slim, the 4th richest man in the world, and by far the richest in Mexico, is one of Lopez Obrador's biggest supporters). He's hardly a "communist", and a little more equitable distribution of benefits (like better garbage collection and police protection in poor neighborhoods rather than the rich ones) is hardly radical.
We should have annexed Mexico in 1846, done the cowboys'n'Indians thing, and saved 21st Century America a whole lot of trouble.
sadly, we can fall even more.
yeah, but Mexico is a centralist country disguised of a federal one (university education per semester in Mexico city $1 dollar; in torreon, coahuila $130. both are in state sponsored universities), so a good part of the budget stays in the D.F. that's PRI's fault, true, AMLO is only taking advantage of an already existing situation to do the cheapest proselistism campaign of the history. what's he going to do with ten times more population and only a little more budget? I doubt he will join the "Latin Soviet Union" agenda, tough, but he will scare foreign and national inversion and indebt the country. that's for sure.
This is going to be one interesting election. So Carlos Slim, a billionaire, is backing Obrador. If I am not mistaken, and I'll have to look it up on google, Carlos Slim has some US government lawsuits against him with the security exchange commission.
It will be interesting to see which Mexican candidate is backed by Dick Morris, and which one by Carville
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