The polls are highly volatile, and recent precedent suggests far from entirely reliable. Gea-Isa for Milenio put López Obrador ahead of Vázquez Mota (19.3%-17.9%) with 22.4% undecided in a poll published on 19 April, trailing Peña Nieto, of the main opposition Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), who posted 39.4% support. However, just five days later the same pollster put Vázquez Mota on 19.9% and López Obrador on 17% with Peña Nieto on 38.2% and 23.7% of voters undecided. In fairness, although much is made by the media of these small swings to and fro, they could be explained simply by the margin of error in the poll of 3%.
The really significant figure in the poll is the number of undecided voters, which eclipses the support of both Vázquez Mota and López Obrador. Both candidates are aware that their hopes hinge on winning over the majority of these swing voters. López Obrador appealed to his supporters this week to aim to convince five undecided voters each to be part of the “change” his campaign is promising. López Obrador also responded to comments by the prominent poet and peace activist, Javier Sicilia, that Mexicans should cast blank ballots in the face of the lack of serious candidates. López Obrador said that failing to vote was tantamount to voting for the status quo.
Vázquez Mota, meanwhile, is trying to bring to the surface a visceral fear of the PRI’s domination of Mexican politics, while appealing to Mexican nationalism by criticising the US, which she said should assume greater responsibility for the trafficking of arms benefitting Mexican drug-trafficking organisations (DTOs). She also said that the government had not been sufficiently firm with the US.
Vázquez Mota on the slide
The Gea-Isa poll is published too frequently to note significant vicissitudes for the main presidential contenders, but other surveys show that Vázquez Mota’s challenge is fading. Buendía y Laredo for El Universal, for instance, gave Vázquez Mota 17.5% and López Obrador 16.4% in its most recent poll in April. In March, however, she had polled 23.7% support, a significant decline. This gave a false impression that López Obrador was on the rise, while in fact he merely stayed put: in March he polled 16.9% support. Another poll released this week by Consulta Mitofsky put Peña Nieto on 40% followed by Vázquez Mota on 21.5%, López Obrador on 18% and 20% undecided.
Vázquez Mota is looking gaffe-prone, even though events beyond her control at times seem to be conspiring against her. On 22 April a live televised video-link interview she was giving to the US broadcaster CNN en Español was cancelled after the video link failed.
López Obrador, meanwhile, is starting to flesh out his campaign proposals. Perhaps the most eye-catching of these is his commitment to revise international trade treaties in order to protect national producers, especially the textile and shoe industry, and to “guarantee” fair competition for small and medium sized businesses (Pymes), which he said accounted for 90% of employment in the country. He stressed that this by no means constituted “closing ourselves off from the world”, still less cancelling the agreements, but he is advocating the sort of protectionism that President Felipe Calderón has fiercely criticised both Argentina and Brazil for employing.
López Obrador said manufacturers in other countries enjoyed the support of subsidies, cheap government loans, and the provision of cheaper energy, while Mexicans were neglected. He also said he would abolish Calderón’s main tax innovation, the Impuesto Empresarial a Tasa Unica (Ietu), a flat tax on businesses, which he said was further punishing Pymes, taking 5% of their earnings, while encouraging monopolies.
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