Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, presidential candidate of the leftist PRD, has drawn within four percentage points of frontrunner Enrique Pena Nieto, candidate for the once-ruling PRI, according to a poll in Reforma in Mexico City.
Josefina Vasquez Mota, of the rightist PAN, the party of President Felipe Calderon, remains in the low 20s.
AMLO has been aided by student protests against Pena Nieto, who is viewed widely as a member of the PRI’s dinosaur element, young though he may be.
Pena Nieto is always widely viewed as being a creation of Mexico’s media elite, particularly the vast Televisa news and entertainment conglomerate, which many people charge has devoted enormous amounts of air time to promoting his candidacy and campaign over the last few years.
This makes the Reforma poll marking AMLO’s resurgence all the more interesting. One key force in EPN’s fall-off would seem to be the student-based Yo Soy 132, an Occupy-like movement that has held marches critical of the PRI candidate and the media promoting his campaign.
Animal Politico’s El Palenque debates whether AMLO can catch EPN, with discussions about which candidate will benefit from the large number of undecideds.
By the afternoon, EPN tells Reforma that the poll figures leave him “really animated” to campaign and that the real poll takes place July 1, when Mexican elect the new president.
By end of day, investors used the poll — fear of an AMLO presidency — to stage a big sell off in stocks and a fall in value for the Mexican peso.
