Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto likened the front-runner for next year’s presidential election to Venezuelan leftist leaders in an interview published on Thursday, suggesting the opposition candidate could unleash economic chaos if he wins office.
Former Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has led early opinion polls for next year’s election. Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) earlier this year sought to brand Lopez Obrador’s MORENA party an ally of Venezuela after the Venezuelan Embassy suggested it had MORENA’s backing.
In an interview with newspaper Excelsior, Pena Nieto said the rhetoric of Lopez Obrador was “not too far, nor too different from” that of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Photo: Reuters
“I’m not the one who says it. Many voices have said it with a note of concern,” said Pena Nieto, who is constitutionally barred from seeking re-election. “They’ve said he’s very similar, that his method is very similar and they’re concerned that down the line that rhetoric triumphs, that down the line Mexico, instead of moving forward as it has for the last 25 years, resembles Venezuela today.”
Pena Nieto added that it was up to the Mexican people to decide which candidate they wanted as their next president.
Lopez Obrador dismissed Pena Nieto’s comments, saying they were nothing more than political theater meant to scare voters.
“Pena [Nieto] is very wrong, the people aren’t stupid,” he said at an event in the northern border city of Mexicali.
Lopez Obrador was the runner-up in Mexico’s past two presidential contests. A victory could mark a leftward shift in Latin America’s second-largest economy, where centrist technocrats have held sway for decades, and further complicate relations with top trade partner the US.
Maduro’s government has been criticized by Washington, the UN and major Latin American nations for overriding the opposition-led Venezuelan Congress, cracking down on protests, jailing hundreds of foes and failing to allow the entry of foreign humanitarian aid to ease a severe economic crisis.
Critics of Lopez Obrador have long sought to depict him as an economic liability, likening him to Maduro’s fiery late predecessor, former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, in previous runs for the presidency.
Lopez Obrador has toned down some of his more populist economic rhetoric to try to win support among Mexico’s middle class and has railed relentlessly against political corruption.
The PRI, long Mexico’s dominant political force, recaptured the presidency in 2012.
However, corruption scandals, resurgent gang violence and weak growth have undermined its credibility.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was