SALON

Monday, Jun 25, 2012 3:15 AM UTC

Mexico front-runner draws crowds, protests

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Mexico front-runner draws crowds, protestsSupporters of Enrique Pena Nieto, presidential candidate of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI, cheer during a campaign rally at the Azteca stadium in Mexico City June 24. (AP/Esteban Felix)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — With a promise to “leave behind the practices of the old politics,” Mexican presidential front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto held his first and only mass rally in Mexico City, the nation’s capital, on Sunday, one week ahead of the July 1 presidential elections.

Pena Nieto sought to break with the reputation of his Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI, as the sclerotic, antiquated party that governed Mexico for 71 uninterrupted years, until it lost the 2000 elections.

“I am part of a new generation that grew up under democracy,” Pena Nieto told tens of thousands of cheering supporters at the Azteca soccer stadium on the city’s southern edge. The 105,000-person capacity stadium appeared almost full, with only the upper ring of seats empty.

“We know how to govern democratically,” Pena Nieto pledged. He added, “In this election, all of Mexico is going to win.” He stressed increasing wages “so that you earn more.”

However, some of the party’s old practices were on display at the rally, where security was extremely tight.

Many supporters were trucked in by busloads from surrounding Mexico state, where Pena Nieto served as governor until last year. Many descended from the buses still clutching the bag lunches, hats and T-shirts they had been given. The stadium was awash in red shirts, the party’s campaign colors.

“Our party provided the bus to bring us here and take us back,” said Antonia Almaraz , 37, a housewife who came with her neighbors and children from the town of Tequixquiac, in Mexico state.

Access was by ticket only, which organizers, many of them PRI candidates for local office, handed out to their contingents outside the stadium.

Organizers reportedly moved the event up an hour to avoid the kind of anti-PRI protests that have dogged Pena Nieto in the capital, where the rival leftist Democratic Revolution Party is strong. A PRI spokesman denied the reported reasons for the change, saying the rally had only been moved up a few minutes.

Some at the rally weren’t sure if the PRI had changed, or if Pena Nieto would be able to change it once in power. In its 71 years in power, the PRI often governed by a mix of hand-out programs, repression and vote fraud. Others were persuaded by Pena Nieto’s message of a new PRI.

“They have learned from the errors … that the party committed in the past,” said Marina Gomez, 48, a financial industry employee from the nearby state of Tlaxcala.

Other parties, such as the ruling National Action Party, have had trouble filling stadiums.

Sunday also saw thousands of anti-Pena Nieto protesters gathered in the heart of Mexico City to demonstrate against what they claimed would be a return to the past under the candidate, who leads all major polls in the race.

Alma Hernandez, 41, a secretary, said she didn’t think the PRI had changed.

“As far as I’m concerned, (Pena Nieto) is deceiving the people,” Hernandez said.

She held up a banner showing photos of old, much-hated figures from past PRI governments, including ex-President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who is widely blamed for the 1994 peso devaluation and ensuing economic crisis.

“(Pena Nieto) was brought up and supported by these people, who have stolen a lot from the country,” Hernandez said.

More Mark Stevenson.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Brad Pitt keeps breaking his silence on how boring marriage to Jennifer Aniston was
19 points20 points | 26 comments
vote
GOP opposes right to vote - Iraq's new constitution has something America's doesn't: The right to vote. Republicans want to keep it that way
20 points21 points | 5 comments
vote
Marijuana opponents’ new plan: Kill First Amendment After failing to stop Colorado from legalizing it, pot foes now want to criminalize drug images and media content
13 points14 points | 1 comment
vote
The right to vote is the foundation of any democracy. Yet most Americans do not realize that we do not have a constitutionally protected right to vote.
12 points13 points | 5 comments
vote
Report: Nearly a quarter of all Americans struggle to afford food
21 points22 points | 6 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations