MEXICO CITY — When an estimated 40 million Mexican voters go to the polls next month to pick their next president, the result could affect the lives of 296 million people north of the border.
A victory by leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on July 2 would add an emphatic exclamation point to a series of Latin American elections that has seen voters roundly reject the "Washington consensus," the model that emphasizes fiscal discipline and pro-market policies.
A victory by conservative candidate Felipe Calderon might make Mexico a stronger U.S. ally than ever before.
Mexican election: An article in Sunday's Section A about the U.S. stake in the upcoming Mexican presidential election incorrectly stated that conservative candidate Felipe Calderon had never held elective office. He was elected to the Mexico City assembly and the lower house of the Mexican Congress.
"I suspect the Bush administration would prefer Calderon," said Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. "There's a greater likelihood of continuity with Calderon. It would eliminate any concern about making connections to other leaders in South America that they have doubts about."
Still, analysts in the United States and Mexico note that Lopez Obrador has not made Washington or U.S. business a target of his stump speeches.
"Both Lopez Obrador and Calderon have been very moderate and very mature in the way they've handled the topic of the relationship with the U.S. in the campaign," said Gabriel Guerra Castellanos, a former Mexican diplomat and presidential spokesman. Both candidates have resisted the temptation to play the Yankee-bashing card with voters, he said.
Once trailing badly in the polls, Calderon surged into a virtual tie in March, when he began attacking Lopez Obrador as a dangerous radical, saying his proposals to increase spending on social programs and public works projects would bankrupt the country and bring back hyperinflation.
Last week, a prominent business group in the northern state of Nuevo Leon said it would go on a "tax strike" if Lopez Obrador was elected.
On the campaign trail, Lopez Obrador says he wants to win by a wide margin so the economic elite "doesn't try to haggle us out of our victory." Recent polls suggest Lopez Obrador has reclaimed his lead.
With Mexican voters more polarized between rich and poor than at any time since the 1910 revolution, there's talk that the United States' most populous neighbor -- and the main source of its legal and illegal immigration -- could descend into political anarchy and economic crisis in the hours after election night.
