"The extreme polarization of wealth that has occurred in Mexico over the past decade has fed resentments that found expression in Lopez Obrador's 'first the poor' platform."
"Renegotiation of the liberalization clause in agriculture forms part of a reorientation away from an economic policy based solely on market forces to greater state involvement and includes proposals to offer guarantee prices on some agricultural products, preferential credit rates and support to small producers."
By Laura Carlsen
Mexico´s three major candidates ended their campaigns Wednesday in emotional rallies throughout the country. During the few days left before the July 2 elections all campaigning is prohibited. With the proposals on the table, the test now will be to see if voters can cut through the media hype and mud-slinging to choose a direction for the next six years of the nation's future.
Never in the modern history of the country has so much been at stake. The rotation of presidencies throughout the rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party was carried out with the trappings of democracy and little of the substance. Policies were guaranteed to continue without a change in course, since the outgoing president hand-picked the incoming one. The 2000 elections offered a change in parties without changing policies.
But this year a candidate has proposed at least modifications to the political and economic orthodoxy. The largest event yesterday was the rally of leading candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador held in the heart of Mexico City. The center-left candidate spoke to over 200,000 supporters waving yellow flags and fervently chanting his name.
Unlike previous campaign speeches and the rallies of his opponents, the speech laid out the policies that would guide his presidency and responded only indirectly to the accusations of his opponents. In the forty-minute address, it hit the obligatory points expected by followers--with special emphasis on programs for the poor--and sought to allay the fears expressed by big business and the opposition.
The message to defend against privatization of the state-run oil industry drew strong cheers as did the program defined for a "new social pact." The candidate promised to tour the country following elections to draw up a pact based on free healthcare, universal access to public education, pensions for the elderly and recognition of indigenous rights as defined by the San Andrés Accords, which were signed by the federal government but largely rejected in Congress.
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"In economic life there is extreme inequality and exploitation. Although colonialism no longer exists openly in the political and economic sphere, still it persists indirectly, and this should not be tolerated... In this respect you should remember that in economic life, we will have to guarantee the minimum requirements of life to one and all... There cannot be any sort of adjustment as far as this point is concerned. The minimum purchasing requirement must be guaranteed to all. Today these fundamental essentialities are not being guaranteed. Rather, people are being guided by deceptive economic ideas like outdated Marxism, which has proven ineffective in practical life and has not been successfully implemented in any corner of the world. Why do people still believe in such a theory, which has never been proved successful? The time has come for people to make a proper assessment of whether they are being misguided or not." |
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"Human beings have still not been able to form a human society, and have still not learned to move with the spirit of a pilgrim. Although many small groups, motivated by self-interest, work together in particular situations, not even a small fraction of their work is done with a broader social motive. By strict definition, shall we have to declare that each small family unit is a society in itself? If going ahead in mutual adjustment only out of narrow self-interest or momentary self-seeking is called society, then in such a society, no provision can be made for the disabled, the diseased or the helpless, because in most cases nobody can benefit from them in any way... in that case there always remains the possibility of some people getting isolated from the collective. All human beings must attach themselves to others by the common bond of love and march forward hand in hand; then only will I proclaim it a society." |