PRI Ruling Party Well Behind Leftist Obrador in Latest Voter Opinion Poll Dave Graham - Thomson Reuters Foundation
go to original July 24, 2017

The silver-haired 63-year-old is one of the best-known politicians in Mexico, having spent years relentlessly excoriating other parties for corruption in thousands of rallies around the country. (Sopitas.com)

Update: 80% Say It’s Time for Ruling PRI Party to Go (Mexico News Daily)

Mexico's ruling party is running in third place with less than a year to go before the next presidential election, well behind the new party of leftist hopeful Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, an opinion poll showed on Sunday.

Excluding undecided voters, support for President Enrique Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) stood at 17 percent, 11 percentage points behind the top choice, Lopez Obrador's National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), with 28 percent, the poll by newspaper Reforma showed.

The second most popular option with 23 percent support was the center-right opposition National Action Party, or PAN, which held the presidency between 2000 and 2012.

Backing for the centrist PRI has gradually crumbled since Pena Nieto took office in December 2012 because of anger over corruption, resurgent gang violence and tepid economic growth.

Various scenarios for the presidential race showed Lopez Obrador ahead of his rivals, polling between 30 and 33 percent of the vote. Political analysts say that may be enough to win the July 2018 contest with the electorate increasingly divided.

Lopez Obrador's closest rival in the match-ups, trailing by between two and five points, was PAN hopeful Margarita Zavala, the wife of Mexico's previous president Felipe Calderon.

A victory for the combative and nationalist-leaning Lopez Obrador could stoke tensions with the Trump administration just as the United States, Mexico and Canada seek to seal a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Read the rest at Thomson Reuters Foundation

Related: Mexican Politicians Have a New Piñata: Donald Trump (The Hill)

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