[Marxism] Interesting commentary on Fox's attempt to crush possible next Mexico president

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-dresser8apr08,0,753
9387.story

COMMENTARY
Saving Mexico by Ruining It
The attack on Mexico City's mayor is backfiring.
By Denise Dresser
Denise Dresser is a professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute
of Mexico and a former member of Mexico's Citizens' Advisory Committee
to the Special Prosecutor for Crimes of the Past.

April 8, 2005

Today, Mexico is a country divided. Today, the mantra of Mexico's
political and economic elites has become "anybody but Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador," the mayor of Mexico City who they perceive as a
dangerous, polarizing demagogue - but who is the front-runner for the
presidency in 2006.

The ruling classes fear him and what they believe he will do if he wins:
nationalize, overspend, jeopardize Mexico's hard-won economic gains.
They're determined to stop him. But in doing so, they are tearing apart
a country where political stability cannot be taken for granted. They
are undermining the democracy it took so long to achieve. They are
wreaking havoc in Mexico in their attempt to save it from the left.

The proceedings this week against Lopez Obrador are not about the rule
of law. They're about kicking a popular left-wing front-runner out of
the presidential race. As a result of shrewd patronage politics and
savvy political positioning, Lopez Obrador is the most popular
politician in the country. That makes him dangerous to an array of
vested interests and explains why he has so many powerful enemies
obsessed with bringing him down, including President Vicente Fox.

As a result of a political crusade disguised as a legal issue, Lopez
Obrador is caught in a battle for his political life. The attorney
general's office has accused him of ignoring a restraining order issued
by the courts and moving forward with construction of a road to a
hospital on land whose ownership has been contested. Now that the
Chamber of Deputies has stripped him of his immunity from prosecution,
he faces a potential prison sentence and could be deemed ineligible to
run for the presidency while his case goes through the system.

Given how it has weighed in on this issue, the Fox government appears
increasingly hypocritical and inconsistent. The president claims that
Lopez Obrador must obey the law, but refuses to charge prominent members
of his own National Action Party, or PAN, who have broken it. He speaks
about the need to enforce legality where the mayor is concerned, but
turns a blind eye to lawbreakers in the Institutional Revolutionary
Party, or PRI. Every time the president and his collaborators piously
claim to enforce "the rule of law," most Mexicans remember that it
doesn't really exist. As a result, 78% of the population opposes the
current proceeding and questions its true motives.

The onslaught against the mayor shows that Fox has become everything he
once fought against. The candidate who five years ago promised to change
the status quo has now turned into its chief defender. The forceful man
who promised to dismantle an unjust political system now hides behind
its politicized institutions. The political outsider who campaigned to
kick the PRI out of power now needs that party's votes to impeach his
left-wing adversary. What's clear is that Fox fears Lopez Obrador's
potential victory and what he represents more than he fears the return
of the PRI.

The concerted attack on Lopez Obrador has had paradoxical effects.
Before the impeachment process began, Lopez Obrador was a pragmatic
leftist; now he's a radical martyr. His enemies have always believed
that he would be a Mexican version of Venezuela's divisive President
Hugo Chavez, but now, with blows below the belt, they are creating one.
Lopez Obrador is more confrontational than ever. His rhetoric is more
incendiary, his position is more recalcitrant. Under siege, he insists
on behaving as a revolutionary who divides instead of as a reformer who
unites.

Lopez Obrador has added fuel to the fire by calling for people to march
in the streets instead of working within established institutions. As a
result, Mexico is trapped in a vicious cycle: The political and economic
elites are producing an angry populace, and Lopez Obrador is spawning a
united PAN-PRI front willing to sabotage democracy to stop him.

What's really at stake is the survival and quality of Mexican democracy.
Regardless of Lopez Obrador's flaws, his fate should be determined by
Mexico's citizens and not by its elites. The farcical, trumped-up effort
to remove him from the race violates the democratic right to support a
candidate or decry him and his policies through the ballot box. Fox and
his allies in the PRI should put aside their short-term political
calculations and respect that fundamental right.




_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism