07-03-2006 AM News Report:Mexico’s Close Presidential Election

http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/2006/07/07-03-2006-am-news-reportmexicos-close.html
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/03/world/americas/03elect.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

July 3, 2006: On a Peaceful Election Day Across Mexico, Growing Signs of a Maturing Democracy

By GINGER THOMPSON
MEXICO CITY, July 2 — If Mexico is a young democracy, it looked much older than its age during the uncertain presidential elections on Sunday.

Thousands of striking teachers in the southern state of Oaxaca postponed their protests to leave the polling places clear for voters. Subcommander Marcos, the ski-masked leader of the Zapatista rebels who was at the front of machete-wielding mobs just one month ago, led a peaceful march through Mexico City.

The government's Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, welcomed hundreds of observers from all over the world. The authorities estimated that more than two-thirds of registered voters would show up at the polls. And at polling places that once were scenes of huge voter fraud and intimidation, voting passed without serious disruptions or complaints. And at the end of the night, when President Vicente Fox went on national television to explain that the race was too close to call, a nation gripped by suspense and leery of dirty tricks remained calm.

"I know there is no Mexican who wants to go against democracy," Mr. Fox said after casting his ballot on Sunday. "And for that, I offer recognition to the people of Mexico who have known how to consolidate this democracy, to give it strength."

In 2000, Mr. Fox broke through the old system of fraud to become the first presidential candidate in 71 years to oust the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

Robert Pastor, a Latin America expert at American University, who has observed Mexican elections for 20 years and once helped this country come up with mechanisms for cleaning out corruption, said the situation had changed.

"Mexico created an institution a decade ago which in many ways is one of the most sophisticated in the world today," Mr. Pastor said, referring to the IFE. "They have done so much to prevent fraud, implemented all kinds of safeguards, none of which we have in the United States."

On upscale boulevards and in gritty housing projects across Mexico City, voting was a family affair. Parents filled out ballots and children stuffed them into the boxes. Voters banded together to carry elderly people who showed up in wheelchairs. When a poll worker in Polanco announced it was his mother's birthday, the whole place joined together to sing to her.

That, however, was where the affinity among voters ended.

Well-to-do voters typically said they had cast ballots for the pro-business conservative Felipe Calderón, while voters in poorer districts said they voted for the leftist populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador. José María Morera, 52, said he had decided to vote for Mr. Calderón because he worried that Mr. López Obrador "creates a situation of conflict between the social classes."

"He seems cynical, arrogant, uncultured, with no political skills," Mr. Morera said. "I do not think he's honorable."

That was not what Cuitlahuac Herrera Nolasco, a resident of Ixtapalapa, a working-class section of Mexico City, thought. "López Obrador is the only one who has shown, with acts, that he knows how to govern," Mr. Herrera said, referring to the former mayor of Mexico City, who is known for living in a modest apartment, driving a cheap car and building double-decker freeways. "To me he is the most honest. I like his austerity."

Middle class voters, like those in Ecatepec, a suburb north of Mexico City, seemed divided.

Georgina Martínez, 65, a former textile worker, was helped to the polls and to her political preferences by two sons, one a dentist and another who runs a small textile factory of his own.

They voted for Mr. Calderón, of the conservative National Action Party, PAN.

"I normally vote for the PRI," she said. "But after talking to my sons, I voted for the PAN."

Néstor Santoyo, a single father, said he voted for Mr. López Obrador of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD.

"We have already tried the other parties," Mr. Santoyo said. "Now we will try the PRD. I hope it is better than the others."

Striking teachers in Oaxaca, which is still dominated by the PRI, took a break from their protests to rally voters to support Mr. López Obrador. The teachers had been striking for months to demand higher wages.

But after the police tried to break their protests by force last month, the teachers began to demand the resignation of Gov. Ulises Ruiz. And they have accused Mr. Fox of the National Action Party of ignoring them.

In the days before the elections, there were reports in Chiapas of PRI leaders using their old tricks to get votes. Residents in the town of Zaachila said party members handed out cement and other construction supplies in an effort to buy votes.

It was unclear whether their tactics had worked.

"The vote is ultimately secret and free," said Marta Rojas Sebastián, a lifelong resident there, "so we'll take whatever they give us and then we'll vote for whomever we want."

Antonio Betancourt and Elisabeth Malkin contributed reporting from Mexico City for this article, and Mitch Carr from Oaxaca.


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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/03/world/americas/03cnd-mexico.html?hp&ex=1151985600&en=54a191f73704523c&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Conservative's Slim Lead in Mexico Buoys Markets =July 3, 2006
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

MEXICO CITY, July 3 — The latest uncertified results in Sunday's fiercely contested Mexican presidential election show a slim lead for the conservative candidate, Felipe Calderón.

Investors seized on the news and sharply bid up the prices of Mexican stocks and the value of its currency in early trading today. The Bolsa index gained more than 3 percent and the Mexican peso rose 9 percent against the dollar.

Election officials declared on Sunday that they could not immediately determine a winner, that certified results were days away, and that a recount was likely in the close race. The two front runners each declared victory anyway, setting in motion an electoral crisis.

The contest pitted Mr. Calderón, a conservative former energy minister backed by business leaders, primarily against Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the firebrand leftist former mayor of Mexico City, supported mostly by the poor. A third candidate, Roberto Madrazo, the former governor of Tabasco state, also received substantial support.

With 94.26 percent of the votes counted, the Federal Electoral Institute said this morning, Mr. Calderón had 36.55 percent of the count so far, and Mr. López Obrador with 35.46 percent. Mr. Madrazo trailed with 21.28 percent.

Mr. López Obrador said at a downtown hotel on Sunday that he would respect the decision of the election institute, even if he lost by one vote. Yet in the same breath, he said he was sure he had won by 500,000 votes. "This result is irreversible," he said.

Appearing before supporters a few minutes later at his party headquarters, Mr. Calderón rattled off the results of several surveys of voters as they left the polls, and the vote counts at crucial voting districts, all favoring him. "There is not the slightest doubt that we have won the election," he said.

Surveys of polling stations by election officials showed that the contest was too close to call, and they urged people to remain calm until official results could be reported.

On Sunday evening, Mr. Calderón's lead initially appeared wider, as much as three percentage points, when about 25 percent of the polling places had been counted. But as the night wore on, tension gripped the capital as it became clear that the race was razor-close.

For hours, the leading candidates remained closeted at their campaign headquarters rather than appear at the downtown hotels where they were expected to receive the results.

Luis Ugalde, the head of the Federal Electoral Institute, appeared twice on national television Sunday evening, urging the candidates and their supporters to wait for official results. President Vicente Fox also addressed the nation, pleading with voters to heed the election commission's decision. "It's the responsibility of all political actors to respect the law," he said.

But Mr. López Obrador, who critics say has an authoritarian streak, acted as if he was already the president-elect. After the electoral institute said the official results were days away, he went immediately to the historic central square, where thousands of his supporters had gathered to celebrate.

"We are going to demonstrate that we won, and they have to respect our victory," he told the crowd.

At stake in the contest is whether the country remains on a conservative track and stays a firm United States ally or joins a trend that has brought several leftists to power in Latin America in recent years, weakening Washington's influence.

"This is about the struggle between social classes," said Miguel Abel Sanchez, a 55-year-old shopkeeper, after he said he cast his vote for the leftist candidate in the rural town of San Rafael, 25 miles outside Mexico City. "We cannot live in a rich country with an enormous number of people in extreme poverty."

The election was another milestone in the country's march toward full democracy after more than seven decades of single-party, autocratic rule, which ended with the election six years ago of President Fox, who was not permitted to run for another term.

The campaign was marked by wide differences on how to handle the economy and a storm of negative advertising, as Mr. López Obrador's opponents tried to generate a high level of anxiety that his leftist populism would undo the country's democratic progress and stability.

Though Mexico has myriad problems, from rampant organized crime to environmental degradation, the election revolved around the issues of poverty and jobs, and how to close a yawning chasm between rich and poor that has sent some 10 million Mexicans north of the border in search of work since a free trade pact with the United States took hold over a decade ago.

Mr. Calderón, 43, said he would create jobs through securing more private investment and by cutting taxes. Mr. López Obrador, 52, said he would spend $20 billion on social programs and public works to jump-start the economy.

Underlying the debate was the larger issue of whether Mexico's attempt to fit into the global economy through free trade agreements had done enough to alleviate poverty. Mr. López Obrador argued that it had not and that a new economic policy to funnel more tax dollars to the poor was needed. Mr. Calderón wanted to stay the course.

Mr. López Obrador also promised to slash spending on government salaries, root out corruption and cut other waste. He attacked what he called the privileged elite in Mexico, a network of businessmen and politicians that he said for too long had evaded taxes and become rich from government contracts and the sale of state monopolies.

"There cannot be a rich government and a poor people," Mr. López Obrador said repeatedly in his campaign speeches.

Mr. Calderón warned direly that Mr. López Obrador's plan would lead to more debt and an economic collapse. He said that Mexico had to compete in the global economy and that it could triumph with his leadership. He said he would encourage more foreign investment, allow private partnerships in the state-run oil business and slash corporate taxes. "I want a winning Mexico," he said.

Mr. Madrazo, 53, carrying the banner of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or P.R.I., tried to position himself in the center, promising to crack down on crime, cut taxes and provide more direct aid to the poor.

Throughout the country, from small towns to the sprawling capital, people stood patiently in line at open-air polling places, most of them little more than fold-up tables holding voter lists, ballots and cardboard ballot boxes with cellophane sides.

The line of voters in San Rafael was a panorama of Mexico: youths in shades and leather jackets, weathered farmers in white cowboy hats, sun-hardened old ladies in straw hats, small business owners in jeans, knit shirts and loafers. About two-thirds of Mexico's 71 million voters were expected to turn out.

Some said they were voting for Mr. Calderón, of President Fox's National Action Party, to give the free-trade and pro-business policies of the government more time to work. Mr. Fox made history in 2000 when he defeated the P.R.I., but most of the reforms he promised ran aground in Congress.

"In 6 years, you cannot undo what other people have done over 70 years," said Arturo Garcia, a 49-year-old tortilla maker. "Fox was tied up by the Congress."

Some left-wing fringe groups boycotted the election. On Sunday morning, Subcommander Marcos, the masked leader of the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, marched down Reforma Avenue, the spine of Mexico City, with a few thousand supporters, heaping scorn on all the political parties. Some danced in the street and waved Communist flags.

This race was the first modern election in Mexico in which all three major candidates received equal coverage from the media and waged an American-style battle of advertisements on radio and television, from inspirational spots promising more jobs to clever mudslinging attacks.

Mexicans learned the pitfalls and advantages of negative advertising, as all sides delivered broadsides. Mr. Calderón's camp tried to paint Mr. López Obrador as a dangerous leftist and a closet dictator who would bankrupt the country with welfare programs.

Mr. López Obrador portrayed Mr. Calderón as a member of the ruling elite that has enjoyed what he called "privileges" in Mexico for centuries — government sinecures, sweetheart contracts and low taxes.

All three major candidates refrained from bashing the United States or making naked appeals to nationalism, which used to be a mainstay in political campaigns here. Though Mr. Calderón and Mr. Madrazo said they would be tough on crime, none of the candidates said how they would address the gangland war among drug dealers that has claimed hundreds of lives over the last year.

Neither did any of the candidates offer new solutions to illegal immigration, beyond saying the key was to create more jobs in Mexico, rather than to step up security along the border.

Until January, Mr. López Obrador had been leading all other candidates in most polls. An attempt to knock him off the ballot because his administration had ignored a court order backfired, as he mounted huge marches and rallies in his support. The more his political opponents tried to disqualify him from running, the more his popularity rose. Eventually Mr. Fox's prosecutors dropped the charges, as polls showed Mr. López Obrador with 40 percent of the vote.

But Mr. López Obrador stumbled in February when he attacked President Fox for using the bully pulpit of his office to campaign for Mr. Calderón. The leftist accused Mr. Fox of meddling in the election, compared him to a twittering tropical bird called a "chachalaca" and rudely told him to "shut up."

The comment did not sit well with many Mexicans, who revere the presidency, if not the president. Mr. Calderón's campaign pounced on the comment, running ads showing Hugo Chávez, the leader of Venezuela, insulting Mr. Fox side by side with Mr. López Obrador's rant. The Calderón campaign also began calling Mr. López Obrador "intolerant" and "a danger to Mexico."

Mr. López Obrador made a second mistake when he decided to skip the first presidential debate in early April. Mr. Calderon, a Harvard-trained economist, looked the part of a president, sounded well-informed and shot ahead in preference polls.

During the last three weeks of the campaign, Mr. López Obrador was hit with a blizzard of attack ads. Business leaders paid for spots that again used the image of President Chávez of Venezuela to scare voters, saying "Mexico doesn't need a dictator to come out ahead."

Other spots said voting for Mr. López Obrador was equivalent to voting for another economic crisis, like those of 1995 and 1982, in which Mexicans lost most of their savings as the value of the peso plummeted.

Mr. López Obrador struck back, calling his detractors in the business world "white-collar criminals" who used their links to politicians to make money. He also kept up the invective against the "privileges" of the rich, arguing they do not pay taxes and charging the current government was "a committee at the service of a minority."

In his final rally, however, Mr. López Obrador, apparently worried about the attacks, softened his rhetoric and took pains to say he would a careful steward of the economy. "We are not going to act irresponsibly," he said. "We're not going to provoke a crisis."
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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070306Z.shtml

Confusion Grips Mexico Election
By Héctor Tobar / The Los Angeles Times
Monday 03 July 2006

Both leading candidates claim victory, but officials say they won't sort things out until Wednesday. One camp alleges fraud, and the president calls for calm.

Mexico City - Mexico's presidential vote was thrown into turmoil late Sunday, with both leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and conservative Felipe Calderon claiming victory as election officials announced that the two men were separated by a razor-thin margin.

The Federal Election Institute said the result would not be known until Wednesday and that the margin between the two leading candidates would probably be less than a percentage point.

Electoral institute President Luis Carlos Ugalde announced that a "quick count" based on a sample of the votes from about 7% of the precincts had produced a result within the margin of error. Only a full count of the more than 40 million estimated votes could determine the winner, he said.

Lopez Obrador nonetheless announced victory, soon followed by Calderon. Both said late Sunday that their own data showed them winning.

The leftist candidate told supporters late Sunday that the government wanted to cheat him out of a larger victory. "I want to inform the people of Mexico that according to our calculations we have won the presidency," Lopez Obrador said. The final difference, he said, would be 500,000 votes.

Calderon appeared moments later, to say that numerous private exit polls showed he would win. "Today the trends announced by several firms … show that we have won the presidential elections," he said.

Lopez Obrador supporters gathered in the Zocalo, this city's central square, and shouted, "Fraud! Fraud!" Calderon backers at his National Action Party headquarters chanted, "We did it! We did it."

President Vicente Fox called for calm.

"The citizens can have the full certainty, the confidence, that all the votes will be counted and respected," Fox said in a nationally televised address moments after election officials announced their finding.

Early this morning, with 66% of polling stations counted, Calderon's ever-narrowing margin over Lopez Obrador had fallen to 1.2 percentage points.

In the coming days, the muddied result is sure to provide a stern test for Mexico's democratic institutions, which are still struggling to emerge from a long history of corruption and authoritarianism.

Lopez Obrador's statements seemed to play to the worst fears of his supporters, who have long seen themselves as victims of political shenanigans.

"It's difficult to see the elections be manipulated," said Veronica Martinez, who had gathered with a crowd to celebrate what they believed was a Lopez Obrador victory. "This seems like something out of the past."

The election was seen by many as a referendum on the open-market policies embraced by Fox. Dozens of labor unions and leftist groups supported Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.

Roberto Madrazo, the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, was expected to finish a distant third. His party, which monopolized power for 71 years, faced the prospect of becoming the smallest bloc in Congress.

More than 40 million people, or about 60% of the electorate, are believed to have cast ballots, according to the Federal Election Institute. More than 130,000 polling places had been set up, from within yards of the U.S. border in Tijuana, to Indian villages in Chiapas.

The campaign was one of the most acrimonious in Mexican history, with the three leading candidates spending millions on television and radio commercials attacking their opponents.

"I have to vote because it's a duty," said Cleofas Chavez Rodriguez, a 66-year-old resident of San Salvador Atenco, just outside of this capital city. "Of the three, none of them convinced me because they attacked each other so much."

Calderon, 43, ran as the candidate who would best continue economic policies initiated by Fox, who is limited by the constitution to a single, six-year term.

Lopez Obrador, 52, the charismatic former mayor of Mexico City, held a slight lead in most polls. He promised to expand subsidies to the needy and to stimulate the economy with public works projects and reductions in fuel prices.

The campaign slogan of Lopez Obrador's leftist coalition was a succinct, populist message: "For the Good of Everyone, the Poor First."

"We agree a lot with Lopez Obrador because he fights for the poor and the marginalized," said Manuel de Jesus De Lucio, a 50-year-old farmer who cast his vote in a polling booth in an open field in Mexico state.

If Lopez Obrador wins, Mexico would become the latest in a series of Latin American countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru and Chile, to elect left-of-center presidents in recent years.

Lopez Obrador promised to renegotiate certain provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement that opened Mexican markets to U.S. and Canadian imports, and his victory could dramatically alter this country's relationship with the U.S.

Nationwide, only eight polling places failed to open, the best performance ever by Mexico's electoral system, officials said.

Business student Antonio Santiago, 24, was voting for the first time. "I'm voting so that there's democracy," Santiago said at a polling place just outside Mexico City. "So that democracy lives on."

Sunday's vote was also to elect a new Congress — 500 members of the Chamber of Deputies and 128 in the Senate.

No party holds a majority in either house, a state of affairs expected to remain unchanged after Sunday's vote.

Exit polls agreed that the PRI would fall from the being the largest to the third-largest party in Congress. Early results showed the PRI, for the first time in its history, would not carry a single state in the presidential election.

"The collapse of the PRI is one of the big stories of the night," said Pamela Starr of the Eurasia Group, a risk analysis firm. "It's much larger than we expected."

There were some scattered allegations of the kinds of voting irregularities that were common in Mexico's recent past. PRD officials reported that two party activists were killed in the southern state of Guerrero, in a Pacific Coast region beset by drug violence. Election officials said later the killings appeared to be the result of an attempted robbery.

Mexican citizens living in the U.S. were turned away by the hundreds after crossing the border to vote at special polling places that were allocated only 750 ballots each, news services reported.

In Oaxaca, groups of striking teachers surrounded a police station, alleging that officers inside had stacks of ballots pre-marked with votes for the candidates backed by PRI Gov. Ulises Ruiz, news agencies reported. For weeks, teachers have led a protest movement against Ruiz.

The most common complaint was one voiced by voters in many Mexico City neighborhoods: lines outside polling places stretched for blocks.

"I've been here for more than an hour, and I haven't advanced one meter," said Raul Cordero Lopez, a 42-year-old engineer, as he stood in a line with hundreds of voters in southern Mexico City. "It's totally disorganized. The poll workers got here late."

The new president will take the oath of office Dec. 1. Whoever is elected will have to deal with many of the political challenges faced by Fox, who proved unable to pass many legislative proposals, including a tax overhaul.

Since 2003, when he held a referendum in which Mexico City residents voted overwhelming to keep him in office, Lopez Obrador has been widely considered to be the favorite in the presidential race. But he had to fight off an effort last year to have him impeached, which also would have prevented him from running for president.

The Fox administration sought to prosecute Lopez Obrador on an obscure charge related to the construction of a local hospital. Congress impeached him, stripping him of his immunity.

But the charges were dropped after hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Mexico City. Lopez Obrador returned to office and his popularity soared.

Calderon, a former energy secretary under Fox who won his party's nomination in October, trailed Lopez Obrador until March, when he launched what was arguably the most sophisticated media campaign Mexican politics has seen.

In more than a dozen commercials, the Calderon campaign portrayed Lopez Obrador as a demagogue and spendthrift who would bring back the hyperinflation and dramatic currency devaluations of the 1980s and early 1990s.

On Sunday, many Calderon supporters echoed those arguments. "I hope Felipe Calderon wins because he will give more stability and security to all of those who want to live in a country that has prosperity, without any crisis," said Linda Claussen, a 39-year-old restaurant owner here. "I think Lopez Obrador is a danger to Mexico."

By April, Calderon surged into a narrow lead in most polls.

But Lopez Obrador revived his campaign with allegations of corruption against a firm owned by Calderon's brother-in-law. Calderon denied the charges.

The controversy helped propel the former mayor back into the lead in most polls.

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Times staff writers Sam Enriquez, Richard Boudreaux, Carlos Martínez and Cecilia Sánchez in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20060703/ts_nm/mexico_election_dc_23

Mexico conservative claims win By Kieran Murray
47 minutes ago



MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's conservative presidential candidate Felipe Calderon declared victory on Monday in a bitterly contested election and official returns appeared to show his leftist rival could no longer catch him.

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Calderon said his lead was now "irreversible" because he had an advantage of almost 400,000 votes over Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the left-wing former mayor of Mexico City, with results in from 96 percent of polling stations.

"There is an irreversible result and it is in my favor," a confident Calderon of the ruling National Action Party said in a television interview. "The result gives me a very clear victory that cannot be reversed."

A Calderon victory would ensure Mexico sticks to the free-market policies of outgoing President Vicente Fox and hold steady as a U.S. ally, bucking a trend of Latin American nations who have turned to the left and away from Washington in recent years.

Lopez Obrador said on Sunday night he won the election by 500,000 votes and would insist that his victory be respected in an official recount but he appeared more open to a possible defeat on Monday.

"If in the count we conduct, it turns out the final result does not favor us, I am going to abide by the result," he said. However, he added, "We are going to defend the will of the people if it favors us."

The official returns and Lopez Obrador's softer tone reduced the risk of a major political crisis of a contested election, and Mexico's financial markets jumped on a wave of investor optimism.

Legislative election results from Sunday showed Calderon's party made major gains and would be the largest single party in the next Congress, although it fell short of a majority.

The stock market jumped 4.5 percent in early trade and Mexico's peso currency rose 1.5 percent.

Mexico's top election official said late on Sunday the race was too close to declare a winner and a recount was needed, but Calderon insisted that was no longer necessary.

With returns in from 96.3 percent of polling stations, the conservative had 36.4 percent support, 1 percentage point ahead of his rival. Lopez Obrador would have to see a dramatic swing in the remaining polling stations to catch up.

If the Federal Electoral Institute goes ahead with a recount, however, it could be days before a final vote count is in.

Some fear that delay and a combative Lopez Obrador could push Mexico toward political deadlock, street protests and volatility in financial markets.

Unrest would also worry the United States, which relies on Mexican help in securing its borders and tackling immigration and violent drug smuggling gangs.

FOUL PLAY?

The U.S. government took a cautious attitude on Monday, preferring to wait for the official final results.

"We note that the final results are still not available," said Frederick Jones, spokesman for the White House National Security Council. "We along with the Mexican people look forward to the announcement of the results."

Lopez Obrador supporters, remembering a 1988 presidential election widely believed to have been stolen from another left-wing candidate, claimed foul play.

"They are up to their tricks because everyone knows Andres Manuel won," Gabriela Ramirez, a Mexico City student, said late on Sunday night.

Critics of Lopez Obrador, a feisty and austere figure who pledged to put Mexico's poor first if elected, said the close race played into his hands and that he was looking for an excuse to mobilize supporters and cause trouble.

"Now if he loses, he can say the rich guys stole it from us. It could lead to chaos," real estate agent Victor Perera said at an upscale Mexico City neighborhood restaurant.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-twomexicos2jul02,1,7264570.story?coll=la-headlines-world

ELECTION IN MEXICO
Divergent Visions for a Divided Nation
The two front-runners in Mexico's presidential race have built support bases that are split along economic, regional and social lines.
By Héctor Tobar, Times Staff Writer
July 2, 2006


MEXICO CITY — When car salesman Alejandro Alcantar looks at the Mexican business world, he sees a new U.S.-style order and efficiency. Interest rates are relatively low. More Mexicans bought new cars last year than ever before. Salesmen are learning about a newfangled idea called "customer service."

Corn farmer Antelmo Bahena feels like his rural world is collapsing around him. He can barely eke out a living on the three acres he rents south of Mexico City. When he can't afford basic things such as medicine, he blames the corn from Nebraska that's showing up in the local tortilla factories.

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The divergent fortunes of the two men reflect a great economic, regional and cultural divide here. In many ways, Mexico has become two countries. And when Mexicans go to the polls today to pick their new president, one side's idea of how Mexico should work will triumph over the other.

Caught, as always, between the United States and the rest of Latin America, Mexico will choose between one candidate who is U.S.-educated and one who isn't. They will pick between a politician who embraces U.S.-style media campaigning and one who leads a mass movement with roots in Latin American radicalism.

Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and conservative Felipe Calderon even claim their strongest bases of support on opposite ends of the country: Lopez Obrador in southern states such as Chiapas and Oaxaca, Calderon in northern border states such as Durango and Nuevo Leon.

The candidates' economic proposals are as similar as those of Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"We are in favor of modernization, but built from the ground up and for everyone," Lopez Obrador told supporters last week at his final campaign rally. He proposed increases in public spending and government subsidies. "The government I lead will always be guided by the principle: 'For the good of everyone, first the poor.' "

At his own closing rally, Calderon promised to continue the policies of outgoing President Vicente Fox. "We will guarantee policies that attract investment, that will create businesses big and small, which will create the jobs we Mexicans need."

The election of a president will determine whether Mexico continues on a path for the developing world that was laid down in the 1980s by conservative U.S. economists. Fox, who is precluded from seeking reelection, embraced the fundamentals of the neoliberal model: fiscal discipline, open markets and low taxes.

Fox's policies have brought unprecedented stability, enabling millions to secure home and car loans for the first time.

But the same policies also produced anemic rates of growth: An estimated 4 million Mexicans have migrated to the United States in search of work during the six years of Fox's term.

"You've always had a poor distribution of income in Mexico," said Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy research in Washington. "What's changed is that the growth levels of the economy have become so low. You can't pull people out of poverty without economic growth."

Frustrated by their struggles to make a living, millions of poor people are backing Lopez Obrador.

"You go to the grain buyers to sell your product, and sometimes they don't even pay you right away," said Bahena, the corn farmer. He rents farmland in the state of Morelos for $175 a year and barely makes enough money to pay for fertilizer and other costs.

The poverty, which causes so many Morelos residents to migrate to the U.S., is also causing a breakdown of social mores, he said. "The fathers leave to work on the other side, and the mothers are left alone and can't control their sons and daughters."

When the leftist Democratic Revolution Party came to his town to pitch for Lopez Obrador, Bahena listened intently.

Congressional candidate Julian Vences told a story people repeat here again and again. He had seen yellow corn — unmistakably from the U.S. because the local variety is white — in a local grain deposit and tortilla factory.

"Thanks to the [North American] Free Trade Agreement, it's become a rare thing to go to a tortilleria that sells us tortillas made of white corn," Vences said. "That's why Lopez Obrador wants to renegotiate that treaty."

First signed by the leaders of Canada, the United States and Mexico in 1994, the treaty created a mechanism that has gradually eliminated many trade barriers among the countries. A provision eliminating the remaining tariffs on U.S. corn and beans sold in Mexico will go into effect in 2008.

Most of the country's economic elite, and a big chunk of its middle class, is supporting Calderon. They back him in large measure because they remember the bad old days of high inflation and an unstable Mexican peso, a period that stretched, on and off, from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s.

"It was almost impossible to get credit," said car salesman Alcantar, 46. "You had to get a guarantor who would assume the debt if you couldn't pay." Most people who bought cars did so with cash saved over years.

Consumers didn't have many choices when it came to cars — or for many other commodities. "Before, there were just five kinds of cars available here in Mexico," Alcantar said. "When you walked into a dealership, you had to wait forever for a salesman to help you.

"Now we have literally a thousand different choices," Alcantar said. In the new Mexico, salesmen jump to their feet when they see a client, he added.

In the final days before the vote, with polls showing Lopez Obrador in the lead, Calderon's campaign saturated the airwaves with commercials suggesting Mexico's economic stability would disappear if the leftist was elected and increased public spending: The ads compared him to 1970s Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo.

"Lopez Portillo made the same proposals. The result was a crisis that lasted 10 years," intones one Calderon ad that features a Mexican family standing in a neighborhood that resembles U.S. suburbia. "You could lose the house that you bought on credit with so much sweat…. Don't vote for another crisis."

The differences between the two campaigns and their supporters are apparent to even the most casual observer.

Like many recent Mexican presidents, Calderon has an advanced degree from a U.S. university — in his case, from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is the affluent son of a founder of the National Action Party, or PAN.

Calderon's supporters circulate PowerPoint presentations outlining how well Mexico's economy has performed under Fox. Many think he's simply smarter than Lopez Obrador. A few have circulated a rumor (denied by the Lopez Obrador campaign) that the leftist candidate doesn't have a visa to visit the United States: Such visas are seen as a status symbol here.

The rumor goes to the heart of what many Mexicans think a leader should — or should not — look like. Should he be a technocrat who understands the pie charts and spreadsheets that dominate the world of the car salesman? Or should he be a man of the people who shares the anger of the impoverished peasant?

Lopez Obrador, the son of a humble merchant family, is a graduate of the public-funded National Autonomous University of Mexico. One of his first jobs in government involved traveling to the country's indigenous villages. He comes from the Gulf Coast state of Tabasco, a tropical region that has never produced a president.

With its large crowds of passionate supporters and populist rhetoric, Lopez Obrador's campaign draws heavily from Latin American political traditions. It's not uncommon to see a supporter at his rally holding a portrait of Argentine-born revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

Lopez Obrador's backers revel in the low-tech, making their own fliers with scissors and glue, photocopying them and passing them out. For some, the vote is only the latest chapter in a war for social justice.

Ascencion Jaramillo, 83, told seniors at a rally supporting Lopez Obrador in Mexico City to be ready for battle on election day. "We are at the point in the struggle where the time has come to load our weapons," Jaramillo said in a raspy voice. "Our weapon is our vote."

Historian Enrique Krauze has suggested that Lopez Obrador's followers believe in him with too much zeal, that they see him as a "tropical messiah" who will upend Mexico's political institutions in the name of social justice.

At the edge of Lopez Obrador's rallies, you can sometimes find supporters who jokingly suggest that their candidate is, in fact, a superhero. They dress in tight red shirts in the superhero style of El Chespirito, the lovable clown of 1970s Mexican television.

El Chespirito's costume bore the letters "CH" inside a yellow heart, but these people have hearts that announce "PG." The letters, pronounced peh-heh in Spanish, are a play on Lopez Obrador's nickname, El Peje, and also the name of a fish found in Tabasco's rivers.

But the actor who played El Chespirito, Roberto Gomez Bolaños, is backing Calderon. No longer the skinny young man he was in the 1970s, but a rounded-out senior citizen, he describes the PAN slate as the only one that will keep Mexico united.

"Vote always for the PAN." he said. Pointing to his temple, he added, "Think about it."

Then he did something that El Chespirito almost never did: He looked straight into the camera, and winked.
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INFOBOX BELOW:
Front-runners= A look at the two leading presidential candidates:

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, 52
* Democratic Revolution Party (Leftist)
* Bachelor's degree in political science
* Party president, 1996-'99
* Mexico City mayor, 2000-'05; promises to govern for the poor and forgotten
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Felipe Calderon, 43
* National Action Party (Conservative)
* Law degree; master's degree in economics and public administration
* Congressman; headed party executive committee, 1996-'99; Banobras bank director, 2000; energy secretary, 2003-'04; supports free-market policies
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Source: Associated Press
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Bio Boxes on Mexico's leading candidates = Mon Jul 3, 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060703/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_election_bioboxes_3
By The Associated Press

NAME: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

AGE-BIRTH DATE: 52; Nov. 13, 1953, in Tepetitan, Tabasco state.

PARTY: leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.

EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree in political science, National Autonomous University in Mexico City.

EXPERIENCE: Son of shopkeepers; director of Tabasco state Indigenous Institute, 1977; breaks with ruling party in 1988, runs unsuccessfully for Tabasco governor; local official and protest leader for the PRD, 1989-96; loses controversial 1994 Tabasco state governor's race to current presidential rival Roberto Madrazo; PRD president, 1996-99; Mexico City mayor, December 2000-July 2005.

FAMILY: Widower, with three sons.

PLATFORM: Promises to govern for Mexico's poor and forgotten, although he has adopted more centrist policies since beginning campaign.
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NAME: Felipe Calderon Hinojosa.

AGE-BIRTH DATE: 43; Aug. 18, 1962, in Morelia, Michoacan state.

PARTY: President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, or PAN.

EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree in law, Free School of Law in Mexico City; master's degree in economics, Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico; master's degree in public administration, Harvard University.

EXPERIENCE: Son of one of PAN's founders; headed PAN youth movement; unsuccessful run for Michoacan governor in 1995; federal congressman, 1998-2000; headed PAN's executive committee, 1996-99; director of national development bank Banobras in 2000; energy secretary, September 2003-May 2004; topped two other candidates to win PAN's presidential primary in October.

FAMILY: Married to former PAN congresswoman Margarita Zavala. Three children.

PLATFORM: Says free-market policies would be cornerstone of his government; pledges to guarantee universal health care, better education and access for all to basics like food and water.
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Profiles of Mexico's 2 main candidates = Mon Jul 3, 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060703/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_candidate_profiles_3

ANDRES MANUEL LOPEZ OBRADOR =

MEXICO CITY - Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is a shopkeeper's son and a leftist who promises "the poor come first," but has sought to distance himself from the growing tide of leftist leaders in Latin America.

Mexicans, tired of politicians who get rich in office, like his frugal style. A widower and father of three, he lives in a modest Mexico City apartment and rides in a compact car, albeit with a driver.

Born on Nov. 13, 1953, in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco, Lopez Obrador earned a political science bachelor's degree at Mexico's National Autonomous University and worked on development projects for Tabasco's impoverished Chontal Indians, sometimes living among them.

He left the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party in 1988 to join the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, made a failed run for the Tabasco governorship, and took up street politics, joining in brief seizures of government-owned oil wells to demand payment for spill damages in 1996.

As mayor of Mexico City, he spent freely on ambitious freeways for the capital and a $65 monthly stipend for every resident over age 70. The city's debt is up but its traffic congestion persists.

Facing an impeachment effort last year that would have knocked him out of the presidential race, Lopez Obrador mobilized mass demonstrations and prevailed. After five years as mayor, he quit last July to run for president.
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FELIPE CALDERSON =

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Felipe Calderon portrays himself as an underdog who will make good on President Vicente Fox's unfulfilled promises.

Calderon's father helped found the pro-business, pro-church National Action Party, or PAN, in the 1930s. Calderon, 43, is married to a former congresswoman.

Born in the central state of Michoacan on Aug. 18, 1962, Harvard-educated Calderon first went to work for PAN at age 26, heading its youth wing before running unsuccessfully for Michoacan governor.

He directed the party for three years until 1999 and twice served as a federal congressman.

After Fox won the presidency in 2000, ending the Institutional Revolutionary Party's 71-year hold on power, Calderon headed the party's bloc in the House but his failure to broker compromises doomed many of Fox's pet projects.

Fox made him energy secretary, but Calderon stepped down in May 2004 after the president criticized him for launching his presidential campaign while still in office.

Fox is limited by the constitution to a single six-year term.

Although Calderon was not the president's top choice as his successor, he easily won his party's three-way primary race.

A father of three, Calderon is the youngest of three major presidential hopefuls and reached out to young voters and women. He promises to reduce crime, extend government health and service programs and continue market-friendly economic policies to create jobs.

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