The underdogs bare their teeth Aug 11th 2005 | MEXICO CITY
The front-runners have challengers snapping at their heels
ASK any leading candidate in next year's presidential vote what he would seek to achieve if elected and the list tends to be much the same. More foreign investment to boost Mexico's flagging energy output; cuts in over-generous public pensions; a more efficient, “adversarial” judicial system modeled on America's; and of course, better education.
This is a contest not of ideas, then, but of personalities and party machines. Whoever wins, he is unlikely to enjoy a congressional majority. So one of the most important qualities in a candidate, besides the strength of the party apparatus backing him, is his perceived ability to persuade other parties' legislators to support what they would have supported anyway, had their own party's candidate won...
Anyone but Madrazo
Mr Calderón may have to fight other potential challengers, besides Mr Creel, for the PAN's nomination. Among them is Alberto Cárdenas, a former minister and state governor, whose star is also rising. But success for Mr Calderón should boost the governing party's chances against tough challenges from its two main rivals. The statist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has the strongest party machine, having governed Mexico for 71 years until Mr Fox's election. And the expected candidate of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Andrés Manuel López Obrador—until recently Mexico City's mayor—is overall leader in the presidential polls.
Until recently it seemed almost certain that the PRI's boss, Roberto Madrazo, would be its candidate. However, earlier this month a group of party big-shots joined together under the slogan “Everyone United Against Madrazo” and endorsed a common candidate. He is Arturo Montiel, who is about to complete his term as governor of the state of Mexico (the country's largest).
The PRI's internal contest is as vicious as the PAN's is gentlemanly. Asked what was the main respect in which he differed from Mr Madrazo, Mr Montiel said: “I like to tell the truth.” It may indeed count against Mr Madrazo that the public widely perceives him as falling short of even Mexico's undemanding standards of probity in public life...