Saving Mexico by Ruining It
Today, Mexico is a country divided. Today, the mantra of Mexico's political and economic elites has become "anybody but Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador," the mayor of Mexico City who they perceive as a dangerous, polarizing demagogue -- but who is the front-runner for the presidency in 2006.
The ruling classes fear him and what they believe he will do if he wins: nationalize, overspend, jeopardize Mexico's hard-won economic gains. They're determined to stop him. But in doing so, they are tearing apart a country where political stability cannot be taken for granted. They are undermining the democracy it took so long to achieve. They are wreaking havoc in Mexico in their attempt to save it from the left.
The proceedings this week against Lopez Obrador are not about the rule of law. They're about kicking a popular left-wing front-runner out of the presidential race. As a result of shrewd patronage politics and savvy political positioning, Lopez Obrador is the most popular politician in the country. That makes him dangerous to an array of vested interests and explains why he has so many powerful enemies obsessed with bringing him down, including President Vicente Fox.
As a result of a political crusade disguised as a legal issue, Lopez Obrador is caught in a battle for his political life. The attorney general's office has accused him of ignoring a restraining order issued by the courts and moving forward with construction of a road to a hospital on land whose ownership has been contested. Now that the Chamber of Deputies has stripped him of his immunity from prosecution, he faces a potential prison sentence and could be deemed ineligible to run for the presidency while his case goes through the system.
Given how it has weighed in on this issue, the Fox government appears increasingly hypocritical and inconsistent. The president claims that Lopez Obrador must obey the law, but refuses to charge prominent members of his own National Action Party, or PAN, who have broken it. He speaks about the need to enforce legality where the mayor is concerned, but turns a blind eye to lawbreakers in the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Every time the president and his collaborators piously claim to enforce "the rule of law," most Mexicans remember that it doesn't really exist. As a result, 78% of the population opposes the current proceeding and questions its true motives.
