Lopez Obrador Tries Again in Mexico Anne-Marie O'Connor - The Washington Post
go to original May 27, 2012

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, presidential candidate for the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), waves to supporters during a rally in Huauchinango.

MEXICO CITY — When Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador lost the presidential election by a sliver of a percent in July 2006, he cried fraud. His supporters took to the streets, and the most fervent blocked the capital city’s major boulevard for weeks.

After the protests, there were more protests.

Lopez Obrador donned the presidential sash, declared himself the legitimate leader of Mexico and called on Mexicans not to recognize the victor, Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party.

Many of Lopez Obrador’s voters have never forgiven him for the spectacle.

Now the former mayor of Mexico City is back for a second run, this time as the less confrontational Democratic Revolutionary Party candidate who calls for a “loving republic” as he seeks to repackage himself as the wise uncle that Mexico needs to take itself into the 21st century.

But his campaign is failing to ignite.

Which raises one of the most interesting questions in Latin America: Why isn’t a candidate from the moderate left more popular in Mexico, a developing country struggling with high numbers of disenfranchised and a deep divide between rich and poor?

Read the full story at The Washington Post

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