Mexican Scramble

Mexico City

The Mexican leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who, according to official figures, was very narrowly defeated in Mexico's July 2 presidential election, has received brutal treatment from European and American journalists, who have depicted him as a sore loser and an authoritarian demagogue. To assume that the resolution of the postelection conflict depends solely on his personal whim--as these journalists have repeatedly implied--is an analytical mistake that muddles these complex and tempestuous issues.

Mexico's current conflict has its origins in a multiplicity of factors. That López Obrador, of the center-left Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), made strategic and tactical errors and committed rhetorical excesses is unquestionable. When AMLO, as he is known, told President Vicente Fox to "shut up, chachalaca!" (a reference to a noisy bird in AMLO's home state of Tabasco), many voters, who still revere the office of the presidency, were offended. Nonetheless, a number of individuals and institutions contributed to the current crisis: Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), the triumphant candidate; the mass media (primarily the two major TV networks, both of which have a center-right orientation); Mexico's business elite; and above all, President Fox himself.

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