Mexico's presidential election seems headed for the courts with Felipe Calderon holding a lead of less than one percent over his populist opponent, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. PostGlobal readers, commenting on the pros and cons of a possible victory by Orbrador, were similarly divided as they challenged each campaign's talking points and drew parallels between the Mexican race and recent U.S. political history.
Calderón supporters, including Jose Flores, praised his support for free enterprise and free trade policies. "He proposes greater economic freedoms to let the people create their own wealth instead of depend(ing) on the miserable crumbs a communist government provides to its people," Flores wrote.
Obrador backer Donald Cuccioletta countered that Mexicans prefer "democracy that functions for them not for the world bank and their friends," while Richard Alveraz said Obrador would cure Mexico's stagnant economy with the same policies that had worked for Bill Clinton.
And reader E. Heyer looked beyond the election to predict that either candidate would find it difficult to enact his policies because of a divided Mexican Congress "for many of the same contentious and politically charged reasons found in the United States."
Last week's other PostGlobal question -- whether governments should monitor financial records to pursue terrorists, and whether the press should write about it -- drew more than 100 comments. Most focused on the press.
"Those who insist on revealing our secrets are as bad as the terrorists themselves and should be charged with treason - absolutely no question," said John Walker. Countered Shiloh Gunn, "The president was disgraceful in his political ploy to shore up his eroding conservative base by attacking a free press for printing the truth - a truth that the president himself had announced as part of his war on terrorism."
At times, the discussion veered into generic praise for and bashing of the Bush administration, prompting this complaint from Zathras: "There is no discussion forum anywhere on the Internet that cannot be overrun by low-quality posters -- the all-caps posters, the exclamation-point-and-floating-dependent-clause posters, the posters who can answer any question with some variation of Bush rocks/Bush sucks -- if the managers of the site allow it."
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Comments (2)
Yesterday started in Mexico the vote by vote counting and preliminary results showed early morning an advantage for Lopez Obrador over Calderón. Mexican Television networks and News papers where tracking the results and changes and even with the initial advantage of the PRD party over the PAN party many Obrador supporters gathered outside the Federal Electoral institute demanding Obrador's triumph. This demonstrations could be the result of the Obrador's policy whose has be an intolerant candidate first calling "chachalaca" (Noisy bird) to the Mexican president, inviting him to remain in silence cause the opinions or comments where contrary to the Obrador's policy, then trying to violate electoral laws asking to open every packet and count vote by vote, and finally calling his supporters into the streets, inviting them to a mass rally Saturday in Zocalo, Mexico City's massive downtown square.
Why Mr. Lopez Obrador is calling his supporters to the streets? Why Mr. lopez Obrador is asking to violate Electoral Laws? Why is he asking not to proclaim a winner until the last vote was counted and his Party supporters did it first last Sunday? There are so many contradictions in this candidate policy but populist is stronger than logical policy and this is what enchant Mexican people whose needed help securing they towns, streets, cities, houses and families. People who's need help to find a job or to find a better place where to live, heard from Lopez Obrador and believe without analyze that spending our taxes in useless actions can conduct México to a crisis.
This is what I think, maybe I'm wrong maybe not, but something I got for sure, nobody can call me "Chachalaca" cause I'm express my opinion globally or locally.
July 6, 2006 12:37 PM | Report Offensive Comment
Posted on July 6, 2006 12:37
If I could add an observation, a number of duplicate posts have started showing up on discussion threads. This is most likely a result of posters being used to comment board software that posts comments immediately. I don't think anyone would object if duplicate posts (which normally appear one right after the other) were removed by PostGlobal.
July 5, 2006 10:51 PM | Report Offensive Comment
Posted on July 5, 2006 22:51