Felipe Calderon, the conservative presidential frontrunner from Mexico’s PAN Party, has taken a five-point-plus lead in the heated race against Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the former leftist Mayor of Mexico City. This is good.
If Calderon manages to beat Lopez Obrador in the July 2nd election, his victory just might stop this leftward, socialist tide threatening Mexico; a tide that has already washed over Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela and Evo Morales’ Bolivia. Chavez and Morales are combative radicals who pose a serious threat to pro-market policies on foreign investment, energy and trade.
Calderon is no Hugo Chavez. Not by a long shot.
He appears to be a pro-growth guy and claims he’s in favor of tax reform, privatizing some foreign investment in oil and gas, as well as privatizing some state run monopolies. This type of reform is sorely needed.
Mexico’s had a weak economy of late. No news there. That's the reason behind all the immigration flows into the United States. Vicente Fox said he’d be pro-growth, but obviously never delivered the goods.
Maybe Calderon will deliver the goods and finally implement a Reaganesque agenda in Mexico? The country (and region) certainly needs it. It would also send a strong political signal to rest of that leftist region.
Who knows, maybe the Mexican Chihuahua could become the Mexican Tiger after all?
