[Mexico] Mexico presidential candidates focus on fight against poverty

From The Seattle Times

By MARK STEVENSON
The Associated Press

METLATONOC, Mexico — Mexico's top three presidential candidates kicked off the nation's five-month presidential campaign Thursday, with leftist front-runner Andrés Manuel López Obrador traveling by dirt path to one of the country's poorest towns and promising to govern for the forgotten.

With poverty shaping up as a key issue in the July 2 election, López Obrador was greeted enthusiastically by Metlatonoc residents who fought to shake his hand and hang wreaths of flowers around his neck.

"I'm going to listen to everyone," López Obrador said on the first legal day of campaigning. "I'm going to respect everyone. But the poor and forgotten of Mexico will get preferential treatment."

Still, López Obrador sought to assuage the fears of those who say he is too radical to manage the Mexican economy.

"I want this to be heard near and far: We will have a market economy," López Obrador said. "But the state will promote development and fight inequality."

His two main rivals, conservative Felipe Calderón and Roberto Madrazo, also focused on fighting poverty as they battle to replace President Vicente Fox, who is prohibited by law from seeking re-election.

Perched on a pine-covered mountain, Metlatonoc epitomizes why impoverished Mexicans head to the United States for work.

According to a 2004 United Nations report, life in Metlatonoc, a town of 30,000, is comparable to that in the poorest African countries such as Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sierra Leone.

"The truth is, we've been forgotten," said Raimundo Ramirez Moreno, a Metlatonoc town councilman, adding that López Obrador "is our only hope. The poor, the people have confidence in him."

Migration is becoming a leading campaign issue along with the widely resented U.S. proposal to extend a wall along the border.

But Foreign Relations Minister Luis Derbez urged candidates Thursday to use care when mentioning migration in their campaigns so as not to taint the government's negotiations with the United States.

A Reforma newspaper poll, published Thursday, showed López Obrador with 34 percent of voters' support, compared with 26 percent for Calderón and 22 percent for Madrazo. Fifteen percent said they were undecided, and 3 percent said they would vote for two minor candidates.

The poll, which questioned 1,515 people Saturday and Sunday, had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Madrazo, whose Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, ruled Mexico for 71 years until Fox's historic victory in 2000, started his campaign in a slum on the outskirts of Mexico City known for sending workers to the United States.

"We want to identify the campaign with people who have the most needs," he said.

Madrazo is expected to portray himself as a pragmatic problem solver, while hoping voters will forget the persistent corruption and voter fraud allegations surrounding his party.

Calderón, 43, a former energy minister and Harvard graduate, launched his campaign for Fox's conservative National Action Party, or PAN, by eating breakfast with about 400 supporters on a muddy soccer field in the rough Mexico City neighborhood of Ixtapalapa.

Calderón has fashioned himself as an able technocrat best suited to continue the economic reforms launched by Fox. Fox has greatly expanded open-market policies begun by his two predecessors.

The candidate said he will bring jobs and raise wages so that thousands of Mexicans won't need to head to the United States.

Maria Isabela Garcia, 48, a maid, said she came out to see "if he really supports us or he's all talk."

Marisol Landa, 36, said she voted for Fox in 2000, but planned to support Madrazo this year because Mexico had improved little.

"He didn't keep his promises," she said. "He didn't have the experience to move this country forward ... under the PRI, the country worked better."

Associated Press reporters Will Weissert and Ioan Grillo contributed to this report, which was supplemented by the Los Angeles Times.