Race exposes class and ethnic tensions

MEXICO CITY — An insidious force is threatening the collective peace of mind in Lomas de Chapultepec, the Beverly Hills of this capital city.

The 10-foot walls and the electrified fences that are de rigueur for most homes can't keep the force out, nor can the neighborhood's ubiquitous private security guards. It seeps in, like a noxious vapor: the possibility that a certain leftist politician with a tropical accent might be elected the next president of Mexico in July.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a native of the sultry state of Tabasco and onetime mayor of Mexico City, is the bogyman of the rich here. Once the clear front-runner, he is now in a tight race with Felipe Calderón, the candidate of the center-right National Action Party. But even though his once-formidable lead has shrunk, the possibility of a López Obrador victory has some wealthy Mexicans preparing as if for an earthquake or a hurricane.

"If he wins, this country will be ruined. I'll be better off leaving," declared Marta García at the Starbucks in Lomas de Chapultepec. "I'll move to Guatemala."

With its main slogan of "For the Good of Everyone, the Poor First," López Obrador's campaign has exposed deep class and ethnic tensions in Mexico. Although he has made quiet overtures to the business community and financial markets, wealthy Mexicans and some in the country's business community see him as a dangerous Robin Hood figure who will take from the rich to give to the poor.

The biggest fear of many wealthy Mexicans is López Obrador's vow to toughen tax enforcement to raise the revenue to pay for social programs. Mexico has a reputation in financial circles as a vast, tax-free "enterprise zone" for the rich.

"We have a saying here," Mexico City economist Mario Correa said. "If you pay taxes in Mexico, then you don't have a good accountant."

"The man is completely ignorant about economics," said Guillermo Oropeza, sales manager for a movie-distribution company and resident of Santa Fe, another exclusive enclave here. "He doesn't have the intellectual capacity to be president. ... He can't win. It would be absurd."

At a campaign stop this month in the state of Jalisco, López Obrador insisted that he had nothing against the wealthy, saying: "We are not against businesspeople. We need businesspeople, and their investments, to create jobs for our people and get our economy moving again."

As mayor of Mexico City from 2000 until last year, López Obrador instituted a variety of public-works programs and subsidies for the poor. Most residents saw him as a competent and compassionate administrator of an overpopulated megalopolis beset by social ills: He left office with an 84 percent approval rating in the city, according to one poll.

But Calderón, once significantly behind, has had considerable success playing on the fears of the wealthy — and the anxieties of many in the middle class.

It isn't hard to find executives, Lomas de Chapultepec homemakers and students at elite colleges here who repeat those arguments.

In the parlance of the city's "educated society," López Obrador and his followers are described as nacos, a slur meaning "rube" or "uncultured."

"Only the nacos, the people who are dying of hunger, will vote for him, just so they can get everything for free, instead of working to make this country better," a man who identified himself as Andres Lavoisere wrote on a Mexican blog recently.

The slang word turns up in thousands of Web postings about López Obrador, along with a slew of conspiracy theories that "prove" he is the candidate of social anarchy and collapse.

The contention that a López Obrador victory would eventually bring an exodus of the rich and their money out of Mexico is an article of faith among many here.

"We've lived through out-of-control inflation and devaluation of our currency, and we don't want to go through that again," said Carlos Zavala Rocha, 67, the owner of a recording company. "People with money are going to take their money out of Mexico."

Among the top members of Mexico's business elite, the mood isn't quite so grim.

Lorenzo Zambrano, president and chief executive of the cement company Cemex, says López Obrador probably would take steps to increase government intervention in the economy if he became president.

"He would be a throwback to what we had ... 20 years ago," Zambrano said. "To go back 20 years is not a process I look forward to."

Still, Zambrano said he believed big business could work with such a government. "López Obrador will be a challenge if he becomes president, but it won't be a tragedy," he said.

Some executives, such as telecom mogul Carlos Slim, are hedging their bets. Slim, the world's third-richest man, gave the maximum campaign contributions of nearly $94,000 to López Obrador and each of the leading candidates.

López Obrador's efforts to calm the markets and woo corporate support have taken place in private, behind-the-scenes meetings. Last year he sent off letters to several hundred of Mexico's top executives outlining his economic strategy. He assured them he would continue the fiscal and monetary discipline that has lowered inflation and interest rates.

On the campaign trail, he repeatedly takes up the theme of economic injustice.

At a recent stop in southern Mexico, his supporters raised a banner that declared: "We're Indians, but we're not fools any longer." The newspaper El Universal reported that López Obrador told the crowd he was sure they would not vote for Calderón because to do so was to become a ladino, or someone who rejects his Indian roots.

García, the Lomas de Chapultepec homemaker at Starbucks, said she was trying to step across the class divide to persuade the people who work for her to vote for Calderón.

"I try to talk to my gardener, to the two girls who work for me, the guy who takes out the trash," she said.

Her workers love López Obrador for the subsidies he gave to Mexico City seniors, she said. "They think that the money he gave to the grandmothers came out of his own pocket. I tell them it comes from their taxes. ... But they just don't understand."

Times staff writer Marla Dickerson contributed to this report.