Mexico's presidential candidates have moved into cyberspace, where their campaigns are bombarding voters with online games, cartoons and attack e-mails ahead of the July 2 vote.
With more than 20 million Mexicans now using the Web, this is the first election where the Internet could make a real difference in Mexico. Most Internet users are young, and so is the electorate: more than 40 percent of the 71 million registered voters are under age 30.
Both top contenders have flashy online appeals. Felipe Calderon, the conservative candidate, is a superhero fighting dinosaurs and sharp-toothed fish in an Internet video game satirizing his rivals.
PHOTO: EPA
"This is the first Mexican election in which the Internet is having a real impact," said his spokesman, Arturo Sarukhan. "Our war room believes it is a crucial vote-winning tool."
The leftist camp of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador hit back with its own e-mail campaign, which it insists is homegrown. One message, titled "Lies," includes a slide show portraying his opponents as vampires and Nazi propagandists.
"They show the creativity of a social movement," his spokeswoman, Claudia Sheinbaum, said. "People are outraged at seeing the candidate attacked so viciously and want to do something."
Many of the e-mail messages forwarded again and again by Calderon supporters call Lopez Obrador a corrupt demagogue and a danger to Mexico. Some also reveal Mexico's stark class divisions.
"The uncultured Lopez Obrador will break the law and protect criminals," says one e-mail that launched a long thread of responses. "If you know a taxi driver or cleaning lady, or anyone else without education, let them know what waits for them."
Other e-mails claim Lopez Obrador, nicknamed "El Peje" after the sharp-toothed fish of his native Tabasco state, failed his university exams and direct readers to what purports to be an academic study finding him mentally unfit for office.
The negative e-mails support Calderon's radio and TV campaign, which include spots that flash the words "danger" and "lies" over images of the former Mexico City mayor.
Lopez Obrador campaign coordinator Ricardo Monreal filed a complaint with the federal Attorney General's Office last month claiming that President Vicente Fox's administration used government workers to send out 7 million e-mails backing Calderon.
Calderon spokesman Sarukhan compared the legal challenge to "throwing smoke bombs."
One of the first political movements in Mexico to use the Internet effectively was the leftist Zapatista rebellion in the 1990s, which won international sympathy through rhetorical attacks on the Institutional Revolutionary Party that ruled for seven decades.
PRI candidate Roberto Madrazo now trails in third place, and e-mails favoring this "dinosaur" are notably sparse. That is because most PRI voters are too old or too poor to use the Internet, said pollster Jorge Buendia of Ipsos Buendia.
Calderon is winning the e-mail war, but Buendia said that will likely only reinforce his support because most Internet users are educated professionals already sympathetic to the candidate.
Calderon's advisers reportedly met once with US consultant Dick Morris but did not hire him. The campaign will not comment.
Sarukhan also sought advice from www.moveon.org organizers, who tried to defeat President George W. Bush in 2004.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not