Leftist Gains Ground in Mexican Presidential Polls

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Leftist Gains Ground in Mexican Presidential Polls
MEXICO CITY May 31, 2012 (AP)

New polls show leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gaining ground ahead of Mexico's July 1 presidential election.

A poll by the GEA/ISA firm suggests front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto fell about one percentage point to 34.5 percent of voter preferences, while Lopez Obrador rose about two points to 21.3 percent.

Josefina Vazquez Mota of the governing National Action Party has fallen to third with 20.2 percent of preferences. The difference between Lopez Obrador and Vaquez Mota falls within the poll's three-percentage point margin of error.

Another poll published Thursday by the newspaper Reforma shows Lopez Obrador even closer at 25.5 percent, within three points of Pena Nieto at 28.5. Vaquez Mota ran well back at 18 percent in the poll, which had a margin of error of 2.9 points.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/leftist-gains-ground-mexican-presidential-polls-16466530

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. It's good to see AMLO rising in the polls, but...

...why isn't he in the lead?

Pena Nieto is the candidate of the PRI, the party of the one-party state that ruled Mexico for decades.

Vazquez Mota is the candidate of the rightist PAN, which has unleashed the horrible drug wars.

What's the problem with the Mexican left. I admit I haven't been paying enough attention.

[sabbat hunter]

2. the PRI

in Mexico espouses a lot of populist rhetoric, and it is the party that people 'know'.
Also PRI has a history (when it first started) of being a socialist/left wing party. It is still a member of the Socialist International.

[EFerrari]

3. Something may shake loose in June. There is a youth movement

that is exploding right now. They have actions planned in June.

Yo Soy 132 is a Mexican protest movement lead by college students against the old long-time ruling party, in opposition from 2000, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and their presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto. Their main target is the Mexican media and their biased coverage of the Mexican general election, 2012 where Pena Nieto is a favorite to become the new president.[1] The protest movement use the slogan "Yo Soy 132" - I am 132, and seeks inspiration from the occupy movement and their slogan "We are the 99%". The protest movement is also described as "the Mexican spring" in local media.[

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo_Soy_132

ETA:

http://www.facebook.com/marchaYoSoy132

[David__77]

4. A lot of worker and farmer groups support PRI...

It is hardly viewed as a right-wing entity. It still has control of many mass organizations. And it has a strong strain of fascist-type corporatism that runs through it that may seem more appealing to struggling working people that outright neoliberalism. Leftist, it is not, but it may have more material benefits to offer than the PAN anyway...

[Wabbajack_]

5. Go Lopez Obrador!

[UTUSN]

6. This fits with what my friends in Mexico told me recently. But this is not your father's AMLO!1

These people are from what passes for middle class in Mexico, working, edging into upper income. They were totally there for PAN when it took over with FOX. I was shocked when they told me they are possibly for AMLO today.

Here's the deal, for them PRI is a dirty word. They say that PAN/CALDERON has done a lot but has been kept cornered with his cartel war. That he farmed out federal cash to the states but didn't keep them accountable for how they spent it, that he has implemented significant social services programs but is not getting credit for it.

As for AMLO, they said he is not the way he was in the previous cycle, that back then he criticized a few "entrepreneurs" (or was it "empresarios&quot and this ballooned into an image of being something like CHAVEZ, but that he has "learned" about his mistakes, that now several "entrepreneurs"/empresarios are financially backing him now and that he cannot buck them like before and will be "kept in line" and "not follow the CHAVEZ route."

I was flabbergasted, asking about his having been portrayed as "messianic." They totally pooh-pooed this, with more references to how he has "learned."

Really, the Latin America specialists here who have known me to be totally anti-CHAVEZ will surely school me, but my shock was based on how FLUID the political loyalties seemed to be, instead of my fixed loyalty to the Democratic party. It had seemed to me inconceivable that they would switch from what seemed one extreme to the other. The one thing they were firm about was their detestation of the PRI.