MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lopez Obrador leads comfortably in Mexican presidential bid

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mexico's populist candidate consolidated his lead ahead of the July 2 presidential election and is now the firm favourite, according to a public opinion poll published on Monday.

Published in Mexico City's El Universal daily the poll shows Mr Lopez Obrador with 42% of the vote and ten points ahead of Felipe Calderon from the ruling centre-right National Action Party (PAN), and an overwhelming 18 points clear of Roberto Madrazo, candidate for the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI).

Mr Lopez Obrador, leader of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), is the only candidate among the leading three that improved on his position from a month earlier. El Universal's February poll had Mr Lopez on 39 points. By contrast, Mr Calderon and Mr Madrazo were on 34% and 25% respectively.

"It's all over," said Vicente Licona of Indermerc-Harris, a polling company in Mexico City. "Something huge would have to happen in the next four months to stop Lopez Obrador."

Mr. Lopez Obrador has been leading the presidential polls for the last forty months. The latest results will come as a blow for many members of Mexico's business community, who until this month had witnessed with enthusiasm how Mr Calderon of the ruling PAN appeared to be catching Mr Lopez Obrador. His proposals to reform Mexico's tax structure and to open the country's highly protected energy sector to private capital had made him the business elite's clear choice.

But Daniel Lund of Mund Americas, a polling company and political consultancy, says Mr Calderon's improvement in public polls was deceiving. "Those polls were coming out at the same time Calderon's campaign team was holding crisis meetings because the party's internal polls were showing a fall," he said.

Most political analysts say that Mr Lopez Obrador's success has centred on his ability to appeal to the poor. His promises to create a universal pension for all Mexicans over 70, and to defend Pemex, the state oil company, from privatization, have gone down particularly well among ordinary Mexicans