Mexico ruling party candidate on attack in debate
By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON, Associated Press – 50 minutes ago
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's ruling party candidate who is trailing in third by many polls went on the offense Sunday in the second and final presidential debate, accusing her rivals of lying and participating in the acts of repression against Mexicans.
Josefina Vazquez Mota accused front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto of using public funds to create a spying agency and of hiding in the bathroom from students who heckled him in a May campaign appearance that sparked a protest movement, including a demonstration that drew 90,000 people to the streets of Mexico City hours before the debate.
"Mr. Pena Nieto, you can't hide in the bathroom to solve the problems of this country," said Vazquez Mota, candidate for the National Action Party of President Felipe Calderon.
Pena Nieto denied he was hiding and said he applauded the awakening of student participation in the political process.
"It's a voice I respect," he said.
Pena Nieto has about a 13-point lead in polls. Vazquez Mota has faltered throughout the campaign, while leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has seen a slight surge in recent weeks to second place as Mexicans contemplate the return to power by Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled for 71 years with a combination of iron fist and corruption before being voted out in 2000.
Mexican voters appear ready to kick the PAN out of office after 12 years of Vicente Fox and Calderon, who launched an assault on drug cartels and whose term has seen more than 47,000 deaths from drug violence.
Attacks were expected all around at the debate because negative advertising has spiked the last two weeks among all three major parties — the PRI, the PAN and Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party. But Vazquez Mota was most aggressive, forcing her rivals to respond, even as they repeated their platforms for creating more jobs, higher salaries and eliminating corruption.
She accused Lopez Obrador, a former member of the PRI, of supporting deadly government attacks on student protesters in 1968 and 1971. Some of the demonstrators on Sunday were commemorating June 10, 1971, when pro-government agents killed at least a dozen students at a leftist political demonstration in Mexico City.
Lopez Obrador said he was still in high school when the attacks happened.
The fourth candidate in the debate, Gabriel Quadri of the New Alliance party, has been drawing single digits in the polls. He asked and received commitments from his rivals not to criminalize women who seek abortions, which are illegal in the country except for Mexico City.
Vazquez Mota accused Quadri of being a puppet of the powerful head of the teachers' union, Elba Esther Gordillo. "He has to ask him mommy on every idea," she said.
Analysts believe protests by young people have caused the recent slight sag in Pena Nieto's lead. PRI officials later questioned if the hecklers at the Iberoamerican University were students and accused them of being planted by rivals. They responded by showing their student ID card across social media venues.
Protesters on Sunday shouted, "Not one vote for the PRI!" and "Out with Pena!"
Candidates focused on Pena Nieto in the first debate in May, accusing him of lying about his record as governor of the state of Mexico and maintaining ties to unsavory elements of the PRI, which was known for buying votes and all-out coercion to stay in power for seven decades but is also credited with building many of Mexico's institutions and its social security safety net.
Now all the candidates are trying to paint rivals as the most corrupt.
Pena Nieto's foes have sought to link him to two former PRI governors in the border state of Tamaulipas, one whose properties were raided by Mexican officials and the other who U.S. prosecutors allege had ties to drug cartels.
Rivals also accuse Pena Nieto of paying Mexico's giant Televisa network for favorable coverage. Both the PRI and Televisa have vehemently denied this.
Two weeks ago, a leaked audio tape was released in which a Lopez Obrador supporter is heard asking businessmen for $6 million in campaign donations, which would be a violation of electoral laws. But the leaked version did not include the full conversation, in which another supporter is heard telling the businessmen that the leftist was not aware of or involved in the request.
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Adriana Gomez Licon on Twitter: http://twitter.com/agomezlicon
Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON, Associated Press – 50 minutes ago
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's ruling party candidate who is trailing in third by many polls went on the offense Sunday in the second and final presidential debate, accusing her rivals of lying and participating in the acts of repression against Mexicans.
Josefina Vazquez Mota accused front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto of using public funds to create a spying agency and of hiding in the bathroom from students who heckled him in a May campaign appearance that sparked a protest movement, including a demonstration that drew 90,000 people to the streets of Mexico City hours before the debate.
"Mr. Pena Nieto, you can't hide in the bathroom to solve the problems of this country," said Vazquez Mota, candidate for the National Action Party of President Felipe Calderon.
Pena Nieto denied he was hiding and said he applauded the awakening of student participation in the political process.
"It's a voice I respect," he said.
Pena Nieto has about a 13-point lead in polls. Vazquez Mota has faltered throughout the campaign, while leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has seen a slight surge in recent weeks to second place as Mexicans contemplate the return to power by Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled for 71 years with a combination of iron fist and corruption before being voted out in 2000.
Mexican voters appear ready to kick the PAN out of office after 12 years of Vicente Fox and Calderon, who launched an assault on drug cartels and whose term has seen more than 47,000 deaths from drug violence.
Attacks were expected all around at the debate because negative advertising has spiked the last two weeks among all three major parties — the PRI, the PAN and Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party. But Vazquez Mota was most aggressive, forcing her rivals to respond, even as they repeated their platforms for creating more jobs, higher salaries and eliminating corruption.
She accused Lopez Obrador, a former member of the PRI, of supporting deadly government attacks on student protesters in 1968 and 1971. Some of the demonstrators on Sunday were commemorating June 10, 1971, when pro-government agents killed at least a dozen students at a leftist political demonstration in Mexico City.
Lopez Obrador said he was still in high school when the attacks happened.
The fourth candidate in the debate, Gabriel Quadri of the New Alliance party, has been drawing single digits in the polls. He asked and received commitments from his rivals not to criminalize women who seek abortions, which are illegal in the country except for Mexico City.
Vazquez Mota accused Quadri of being a puppet of the powerful head of the teachers' union, Elba Esther Gordillo. "He has to ask him mommy on every idea," she said.
Analysts believe protests by young people have caused the recent slight sag in Pena Nieto's lead. PRI officials later questioned if the hecklers at the Iberoamerican University were students and accused them of being planted by rivals. They responded by showing their student ID card across social media venues.
Protesters on Sunday shouted, "Not one vote for the PRI!" and "Out with Pena!"
Candidates focused on Pena Nieto in the first debate in May, accusing him of lying about his record as governor of the state of Mexico and maintaining ties to unsavory elements of the PRI, which was known for buying votes and all-out coercion to stay in power for seven decades but is also credited with building many of Mexico's institutions and its social security safety net.
Now all the candidates are trying to paint rivals as the most corrupt.
Pena Nieto's foes have sought to link him to two former PRI governors in the border state of Tamaulipas, one whose properties were raided by Mexican officials and the other who U.S. prosecutors allege had ties to drug cartels.
Rivals also accuse Pena Nieto of paying Mexico's giant Televisa network for favorable coverage. Both the PRI and Televisa have vehemently denied this.
Two weeks ago, a leaked audio tape was released in which a Lopez Obrador supporter is heard asking businessmen for $6 million in campaign donations, which would be a violation of electoral laws. But the leaked version did not include the full conversation, in which another supporter is heard telling the businessmen that the leftist was not aware of or involved in the request.
___
Adriana Gomez Licon on Twitter: http://twitter.com/agomezlicon
Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.