Slight gains for left in Mexico's presidential election campaign

Los Angeles Times ^ | June 1, 2012 | Tracy Wilkinson

[JerseyanExile]

With Mexico's presidential election one month away, the leftist candidate is making modest gains while the incumbent party's contender has slipped, polls show.

The polls thus far, however, do not alter the front-runner status of Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI, which is attempting to return to presidential power after a loss in 2000 ended its seven-decade rule.

Opinion surveys released this week showed Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, heading a coalition of leftist parties, inching into second place, dislodging Josefina Vazquez Mota of the National Action Party, or PAN, of President Felipe Calderon. The margin between Lopez Obrador and Vazquez Mota remains very narrow, but it is the first time she has sunk into third place in polls across the board.

There are several reasons for Lopez Obrador's surge. Opponents of Peña Nieto have concentrated their attacks on the PRI candidate, chipping away slightly at his lead. A new students' movement, still limited in its national scope but receiving quite a bit of attention in the Mexican capital, has also helped in focusing a negative light on Peña Nieto; many of the students support Lopez Obrador, and they have vigorously challenged the portrayal in some media of a Peña Nieto victory as inevitable. And Vazquez Mota's campaign has stumbled logistically and lost momentum.

[SunkenCiv]

I’m rooting for a 50/50 vote split, followed by an official civil war to accompany the unofficial civil war going on among the drug cartels. Thanks JerseyanExile.