Mexican political turmoil: opposition leader Lopez Obrador decides to create his party

Monday, September 10th 2012 - 01:30 UTC

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Lopez Obrador twice tried to reach the presidency but had to admit defeat

Mexican opposition leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who twice contested second-place losses in presidential elections, said he would leave his coalition, a move that threatens to create a rift among leftists in Congress.

“I have separated from the parties that form the Progressive Movement,” Lopez Obrador said. “This isn't a rupture: I leave in the best of terms.”

Lopez Obrador said he would dedicate all his efforts to change Mexico with a new organization called Morena that has yet to be legally incorporated as a party.

Lopez Obrador accused President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto of laundering money and buying votes in July's presidential election, but he lost a legal bid at the end of August to overturn the results.

Peña Nieto will be sworn in Dec. 1 and has promised fiscal, labour and energy reforms, which Lopez Obrador is likely to resist. Lopez Obrador's supporters blocked many of Mexico City's main thoroughfares for weeks after he narrowly lost the 2006 election. There were a few protests this year, but they failed to reach the scale of 2006.

Lopez Obrador called for a “peaceful civil resistance” before thousands of his supporters in the capital's main square, but he once again refused to recognize Peña Nieto as Mexico's legitimate president.

Javier Oliva, a political scientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said as many as 15 deputies in the lower house and two or three senators from the leftist coalition will likely join Lopez Obrador in his new movement.

“This is going to have important repercussions” Oliva said. “This will create divisions and a future rupture among the left.”

Categories: Politics, Latin America.

Tags: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico, Morena.

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JoseAngeldeMonterrey
There´s no political turmoil, Peña Nieto will take office without a single problem. Lopez Obrador will create his own party to get richer, political parties are nothing but a business in Mexico, and elsewhere in the world.
Sep 10th, 2012 - 02:00 am 0
British_Kirchnerist
I predict this party, alone or in recombination with the rest of the left, will win next time
Sep 10th, 2012 - 12:50 pm 0
Elena
If Obrador is the next candidate of this new party I would be doubful for him to win, a part of the ppl are beggining to tire of him.

The problem in the left in Mexico is precisely this, they get angry with each other and get out to make their own “separate” party, making the left weaker and their oppinions divided, we have a good number of left leaning partys but ppl generaly dont vote for them, ppl are weary of those partys or think they are just there to get money.

So far PRD is the left leaning party strog enough to compite with PRI AND PAN but if it wishes to win it must get a more clear plan, unity between members, and a good strategy for goverment, their old fight for ppl is not believed anymore because they themselves hardly have made much different decisions when in a position of power. Cuatemoc Cardenas is trying to reform the party precisely for this, and I think it would do the party good to do that.
Sep 10th, 2012 - 04:14 pm 0

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