By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
A statement Sunday by former Mexican president Vicente Fox essentially endorsing Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) candidate Enrique Pena Nieto has thrown the other two major campaigns into an uproar, according to Mexican news reports.
Fox was president of the republic from 2000 to 2006, and the first president from Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) to win the presidency. His successor, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa won election in 2006 by less than one percentage point over Partido Revolucion Democratica (PRD) candidate Andres Manuel Lopoz Obrador. Lopez Obrador is running again for president, his fourth attempt as the candidate of the left since the formation of the PRD in 1994.
Fox held the press conference in San Cristobal, Guanajuato where he urged Mexicans to rally around the front running Pena Nieto, who has maintained double digit leads over his rivals consistently since the start in March.
According to a news account on the website of Milenio news daily, Fox said, "...a winner is emerging and we must support him, so we can resolve the problems." Fox also said voters should not be afraid of a return to authoritarianism, adding that political reforms since PAN took over would prevent the excesses committed by PRI governments in the past.
Fox's statement has not surprisingly touched off heated reactions from political camps of the left and the right, including from PAN president Gustavo Madero Munoz who tweeted earlier Monday: "I do not know what bug bit him." Madero's tweet was a reference to Fox's endorsement and photo op earlier last month, in which Fox partially repudiated an earlier statement that PRI would win the presidency.
Madero could not forebear to make a swipe against Lopez Obrador by adding in his tweet, "I am deeply offended with all the support was to be for the one democrat!"
Fox has in the past been given to astonishingly dumb statements which wound up hurting his own party. In 2011, he made a statement in the press criticizing President Calderon and his war on the cartels, and then recommended legalization of drugs in Mexico.
But Fox's media event was a deliberate announcement of support of Pena Nieto, not an unfortunate off the cuff statement by an elder, albeit former statesman. His latest antic has calls coming for his expulsion from PAN.
Pena Nieto for his part has been calling for economic reforms centering around free markets, much like his distant predecessor Miguel de la Madrid, who died earlier in the year. He has also called to continue the war on the cartels except with a different strategy, one he has to date failed to enunciate.
This co-optation has not moved the polls further in his direction, but they have not hurt him either. His most recent statements seem to indicate he is now relishing his status as frontrunner. Instead of attacking his rivals, he is talking reforms.
Pena is also facing a potential problem of his own as undecided voters are the second largest block after his own supporters. A presidential debate is coming next Sunday. Even though last month's debate failed to move any of the candidates, the next debate is an unknown factor in the race.
Lopez Obrador has characterised Fox's statement as "immoral", and Fox himself as "despicable", saying Fox's endorsement is a "dirty trick".
Lopz Obrador himself is facing an enquiry by the Instituto Federal Electoral into his campaign's finances announced last week.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and natonal political news for Rantburg.com
© Copyright 2012 by Chris Covert
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