Andrés Manuel López Obrador rebuilds for second Mexican presidential run

Andrés Manuel López Obrador rebuilds for second Mexican presidential run

Narrowly beaten by Felipe Calderón in 2006, he has softened his image and is closing the gap on the frontrunner this time

Jo Tuckman in Mexico
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 7 June 2012 14.50 EDT

Andrés Manuel López Obrador became the favourite to win Mexico's last presidential elections, in 2006, with the help of his somewhat singular charisma that is rooted in the transmission of sincerity and determination but is rather lacking in flamboyance.

The candidate of an alliance of leftwing parties lead by the Party of Democratic Revolution, or PRD, was aided by a pragmatic courtship of the middle classes while he was mayor of Mexico City. But his lead dissipated as he proved unable to counter efforts to portray him as an unhinged, messianic populist. His slogan, "First the poor", was easily spun to seem like a threat to everyone else.

López Obrador's refusal to accept a wafer-thin defeat to Felipe Calderón sealed his radical image. After his failure to get the election annulled, many observers assumed his career was over.

In the next five years he went back to campaign basics and visited all of Mexico's 2,438 municipalities, many of them several times over. He built a personal support network that he called the National Movement of Regeneration, and secured the left's candidacy again despite a strong challenge from his successor as mayor of the capital.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/07/andres-manuel-lopez-obrador-mexico