Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Mexico leftist offers truce in election bickering
Tue Apr 4, 2006 2:25 PM ET



By Catherine Bremer
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The leftist favorite in Mexico's election race called a truce with President Vicente Fox on Tuesday after weeks of sniping that threatened his lead over rival presidential candidates.

Front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on his daily television show he would stop responding to what he has criticized as Fox's interference in the election race.

Lopez Obrador and Fox, who cannot run for re-election, have been trading blows since last month when the candidate dubbed conservative Fox a "chachalaca," a type of wild turkey known for screeching loudly, and told him to "shut up."

Fox has repeatedly warned of the dangers of demagogues and populists, thinly veiled attacks against the left-wing former mayor of Mexico City.

"I am going to offer a unilateral truce, in other words I am not going to answer back to the president," Lopez Obrador said on Tuesday. "Even though I have a hot heart, I am going to act with a cold head."

He called on Fox to join him in the truce "for the good of the country."

Lopez Obrador's sturdy lead in opinion polls has narrowed in recent weeks, suggesting that the bickering with Fox may have hurt his ratings.

He still has a lead of several percentage points in most polls for the July election, although one had him trailing Felipe Calderon, the candidate for Fox's National Action Party, known as PAN.

A former Indian rights activist with an irascible streak, Lopez Obrador snapped last week, accusing Fox of promoting Calderon and barking: "To hell with the idea that I am a populist."

Lopez Obrador complains that Fox is breaking Mexican law and political tradition by openly backing Calderon, running second in polls.

Calderon and the PAN have complained to election authorities that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, one of Washington's biggest foes, was aiding Lopez Obrador's campaign -- a charge the Mexican denies. Continued ...

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.





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