MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Demolishing attack on Lopez Obrador “radical populism”

The Party of the Democratic Revolution's, (PRD) decision to boycott Mexican president Vicente Fox state of the Union speech to Congress represents a further step towards failure for Mr. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador strategy, which besides is causing “incalculable damage” to the Mexican left.

With these words Madrid's prestigious newspaper "El País" in its main Sunday editorial, attacks the Mexican populist candidate who in July 2 presidential elections was defeated by a very slim margin of 0.58% by Conservative candidate Felipe Calderón from the ruling party.

Titled "The excess of Obrador", the editorial points out that the Mexican populist candidate "not only lost July's appointment with the ballots, but also all degree of political moderation and maturity, and with growing certainty, all chances of becoming again a presidential candidate in a serious country".

"El País" describes what happened in the Mexican Congress as a "show" and a step further for the populist candidate "to failure and self margining of all democratic processes in the future".

"The damage Mr Lopez Obrador is inflicting the democratic left of Mexico is incalculable", reads the editorial recalling that the half point difference with Mr. Calderon, according to the latest public opinion polls, has rapidly turned into what should have been a 12/13 points victory difference for Conservatives.

For the Spanish daily whoever sends "institutions to hell" and describes them as "doted, corrupt and irreversible", as Mr. Lopez Obrador did so last Friday, "is disqualifying himself from presiding over them, and not only for the current mandate which has been denied to him, but also for future mandates".

"Mexico has toiled extremely hard for the growth, solidity and improvement of its democratic institutions to have them sacrificed by the obfuscation of who seems a prisoner of pure resentment", adds the editorial.

Mr Lopez Obrador has fallen into an "anti-systemic drift" says El Pais and warns that the frustrated candidate misses the point when he tries to evoke phantoms from the past suggesting repressive temptations from the Mexican Army or Police forces.

Faced with this situation, all Mexican civil society and institutions have reacted with an impeccable attitude, "impeccable in efficiency, moderation and criteria", which reveals "how useless is the senseless radical populism of Lopez Obrador".

"The Federal Electoral Tribunal has ruled he has lost the election, his excess is out of touch in time and place with modern Mexico", concludes the editorial.