Mexican President Hopefulls Eye Los Angles

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, is one of the leading presidential contenders said to be planning campaign stops in Southern California.

MEXICO CITY (By Sam Enriquez, LATimes) August 23, 2005 — The 2006 Mexican presidential campaign kicks off after Labor Day — in Los Angeles.

The leading contenders are planning appearances in L.A. this fall, campaign aides confirm, in a bid to capture the attention and support of their country's newest constituency.

Last month, Mexicans living abroad were granted the right to vote by mail, beginning with the presidential election in July 2006.

There are estimated to be 10 million adult Mexicans living in the United States, and experts say a third or less are eligible to vote, though it is anybody's guess how many will cast ballots. About 37 million people, 64% of the registered electorate, voted in Mexico's 2000 presidential election.

The front-runners want to make every vote count, and they have little time. Mexican election laws forbid campaign appearances outside the country after candidates are selected this fall.

The right to vote abroad, and the billions of dollars sent home by emigrants each year, has turned the spotlight on a group of men and women more accustomed to being ignored.

"This is finally the chance to ask them what we want them to do for us in the United States, and for our families back home," said Primitivo Rodriguez, a voting rights advocate in Mexico. "As Mexican Americans have dramatically decreased their dialogue with the Mexican government, this shows the growing presence of a new Mexican voice in the U.S."

The U.S. immigrants come largely from poor villages in half a dozen Mexican states. But they learn trades and earn American salaries, extending a strong influence over family and friends back home. Their success inspires more and more Mexicans to seek a better life up north. And their growing numbers trigger unease among many Americans.

Now they have the attention of Mexico's political leaders.

The leading presidential contender, according to polls, is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who stepped down last month as mayor of Mexico City to campaign full time. His campaign lieutenant first talked of a Southern California visit during the inaugural of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in July.

So far, none of the candidates have set dates, each apparently waiting to first see what the other is going to do.

Before the mail-in balloting was approved, Mexicans living abroad had to return to their homeland if they wanted to vote.

Now the stakes have risen. When Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, the founder of Lopez Obrador's left-of-center Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, came to Los Angeles in May 2000 to campaign for president, he drew about 250 supporters to an Olvera Street rally.

If Lopez Obrador could plan his visit for Sept. 15, Mexico's Independence Day, "we'll have at least 100,000 people" lining the streets of Huntington Park, said Felipe Aguirre in a telephone interview from Maywood. The paralegal is the party's former California chairman.

Roberto Madrazo and Arturo Montiel, both seeking the nomination of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as PRI, will be their party's first rivals to campaign toe to toe in the United States when they visit Los Angeles this fall.

The PRI ruled Mexico for 71 years before losing the presidency in 2000 to Vicente Fox of PAN, the National Action Party.

Mexico allows only one six-year term, so Fox is supporting Santiago Creel, his former interior minister who resigned in June to campaign. Creel, who is the weakest of the front-runners according to polls, has not said whether he would campaign abroad.

Fox also came to California in May 2000, but skipped Los Angeles to give a speech to the state Senate in Sacramento.

This season, PAN's president, Manuel Espino, will visit Los Angeles this month, ostensibly to incorporate for the first time concerns of Mexico's many expatriates into the party's 2006 platform.

Madrazo, the PRI president, is also L.A.-bound. Norwalk die-maker Jose Angel Gonzalez, reached by telephone, said he and other PRI supporters were already preparing their questions.

For starters, he said: How about federal legislation allowing migrants living in the United States to hold office throughout Mexico? Right now, it is allowed only in the state of Zacatecas, where Gonzalez travels once a month to serve as a councilman in his hometown, Fresnillo.

"We want a proposal from him," said Gonzalez, 55, who has lived in Norwalk for more than 30 years. "People from Jalisco, Guerrero, they want the same opportunity."

He backs Madrazo but wants a chance to explain first-hand the difficulties facing Mexicans abroad.

"We see our people suffering," Gonzalez said. "Police tow away their cars because they cannot get driver's licenses. People are dying in the desert trying to get here. People in Mexico don't know what it's really like here."

Most of his friends support some form of amnesty for the millions of Mexicans living illegally in the United States, Gonzalez said. He would like Madrazo to negotiate the idea with President Bush.

"People who are here aren't going back, and employers need cheap labor," he said.

"Let's have temporary work permits for three months, six months, a year. If they're good citizens, then give them a chance to apply for a green card. That would take away the money in smuggling people across the border, and less people would die in the desert."

With Madrazo, one of the most powerful men in Mexican politics, facing opposition within his own party, he is more likely to listen to such demands, Gonzalez said.

Aguirre, of the PRD, said Lopez Obrador also would get a chance to prove he cared about Mexicans living abroad.

"He's never been a champion of immigrant rights," Aguirre said. "But he may come around now because of the campaign. If he wins over the migrants, that popularity could pull a lot of votes in Mexico."

Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute is working on plans to reach Mexicans living outside the country through consulates, the Internet and hometown civic organizations. Those immigrants with voter cards can request ballots by mail from Oct. 1 to Jan. 15. They must be mailed back to Mexico between April 2 and June 30.

The electoral institute said Friday it would spend $100 million on the mail-in balloting.

Mexican political consultant Alfonso Zarate said the influence of expatriates in the 2006 election would outweigh the number of ballots cast.

The vote abroad, he said, is largely symbolic, but "it's still important for candidates to make an appearance."

The best estimate of the number of eligible voters in the United States was drawn from surveys in the last year of Mexicans in line at consulate offices in seven U.S. cities by the Pew Hispanic Center, based in Washington. They reported that 42% of people polled said they held valid voter registration cards.

But center director Roberto Suro said the survey favored more recent immigrants. The percentage holding voter cards, he said, was much lower among Mexicans who had lived in the U.S. for several years or more.

How many registered Mexican voters are there in the United States? "My best estimate is in the mid-3-million range," he said.

As far as turnout, Suro wouldn't venture a guess: "You have to ask, 'What is the propensity to vote? How hard or how easy is it to register?' "

The law also gives 15 million or so Mexican Americans the right to cast ballots if they are willing to travel to Mexico with proof that one or more parents was born there, and then wait a couple of weeks for their voter-registration application to be processed.

As a practical matter, voting rights advocate Rodriguez said, "I don't expect Antonio Villaraigosa or Bill Richardson to vote in this election."

Mexican Hopefuls Eye Voters in L.A.

With immigrants now able to mail in ballots, presidential candidates plan campaign stops.