Mexican left-wing candidate out front

Mexico City – Mexican left-wing presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador extended his lead to 14 points in an opinion poll completed last week, with a fight between his opponents over accusations of financial wrongdoing weighing on their support.

Lopez Obrador has 35% support ahead of the July 1 vote according to the survey by polling firm Parametria, published by Reuters yesterday ahead of wider publication.

That compared with 34% and an 11 percentage point lead in a survey by the same company a month earlier.

Lopez Obrador appeared to benefit from a tussle for second place between his opponents, who have spent the last couple of weeks accusing each other of corruption, with the former Mexico City mayor sitting comfortably above the fray.

“The fight for second place is damaging them both,” Parametria founder Francisco Abundis said. “For citizens, these disputes are very tiring.”

In the number two spot, Ricardo Anaya of left-right coalition “For Mexico in Front”, slipped to 21% support, from 23% in the previous poll.

Former finance minister and ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party hopeful Jose Antonio Meade slid for the second consecutive month, to 16% from 18%.

The poll was taken between February 24 and March 1, as the mudslinging was intensifying.

At the centre of the Anaya controversy is the purchase and sale of real estate in an industrial park in the state of Queretaro between 2014 and 2016, which Meade says led to illicit enrichment by his rival. Anaya said the deals were legitimate. Anaya responded by pointing to irregularities detected by federal auditors worth millions of dollars in the accounts of the ministry for social development when it was run by Rosario Robles, now minister for agrarian, land and urban development. – Reuters