Final Lopez Obrador Rally Draws 150,000

An estimated 150,000 people crowded into the center of this capital city Wednesday for the final big event of Mexico’s presidential campaign, the closing rally for leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Ahead by a narrow margin in most of the final polls ahead of Sunday’s vote, Lopez Obrador told supporters gathered in this city’s Zocalo, or central square, that a victory for his campaign would be a victory for justice and Mexico’s common people.

“Government shouldn’t be a committee at the service of the minority,” he said.

“I believe that this country can’t survive more of the same policies.... We need a deep transformation, a true purification of public life.”

Lopez Obrador received one of the loudest ovations when he said he would “renegotiate” those provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement that would eliminate tariffs on the imports of American corn and beans in 2008.

“We are going to protect our domestic producers,” he said.

Many of Lopez Obrador’s supporters said they sensed a first presidential victory was near for their Democratic Revolution Party almost a generation after it was formed to challenge the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s long grip on power.

“We’re confident we’re going to win because of all the hard work we’ve put into the campaign,” said Leticia Avelindo, a homemaker and activist from this city’s Iztacalco district. “Above all, the charisma and personality of our candidate will carry us through.”

Speaking on a large stage constructed near the front door of the National Palace, Lopez Obrador promised a kind of 21st century New Deal, saying he would expand subsidies to Mexico’s neediest residents and launch massive public works projects.

He promised to invest in Mexico’s lagging, government-owned petroleum industry and to lower the price of fuels for domestic consumers to help stimulate the domestic economy.

By law, candidates here cannot stage rallies or run TV ads after Wednesday. Conservative candidate Felipe Calderon, from President Vicente Fox’s National Action Party, or PAN, staged his last big rally Sunday in this city’s Aztec Stadium before a crowd of more than 100,000 people.

Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, who is running a distant third in most polls, staged his final rally Tuesday.

Mexico’s presidential campaign today enters a cooling-off period, during which all three major contenders will work on get-out-the-vote efforts and the recruitment of tens of thousands of monitors each party is entitled to place at polling stations across the country.

A controversy over the fairness of the election erupted this week when questions arose over whether the PAN was making illegal use of voter registration data to aid the Calderon campaign, an accusation party leaders repeatedly have denied.

At issue is whether the party may be using voter registration rolls to direct campaign-related appeals to voters. Under Mexican law, political parties may not use such data for campaign objectives.

On Tuesday, the federal attorney general’s special unit for prosecuting electoral crimes confirmed that it had received a complaint from the Federal Electoral Institute and was considering launching an investigation on whether personal data on registered voters could be accessed through a Calderon campaign Internet site.

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Times staff writer Reed Johnson contributed to this report.