Mexico’s opposition in danger of split

Less than two years after Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador nearly won Mexico’s presidency, a nasty leadership struggle in his party could decide whether the fiery leftist remains its standard-bearer.

Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor, will not be on the ballot when his Democratic Revolution Party selects new leaders today. But analysts say a loss for his allies would weaken his hold on the party’s organizational machinery and money, and could augur a split in the leading opposition party.

Stakes are high for the party and for Lopez Obrador, who has yet to concede defeat in the July 2006 election, won by conservative Felipe Calderon. In the balance is the political future of a charismatic populist adored by millions as a champion of the poor but reviled by many other Mexicans as a reckless demagogue.

Lopez Obrador has endorsed economist Alejandro Encinas, who succeeded him as mayor of Mexico City, for party president over the other leading contender, Jesus Ortega, a former federal legislator.

Members of the PRD, as the party is known using its Spanish initials, will separately elect a party leader for the capital.

“If his group is unable to win control of the political party, sooner or later Lopez Obrador is going to leave the PRD. He is not going to accept a leadership in the PRD that he has called ‘too soft,’ ” said Alfonso Zarate, who publishes a newsletter on Mexican politics.

Some commentators have framed the PRD contest as a defining battle between adherents of the street-fighting brand of politics favored by Lopez Obrador and party moderates who are mastering the art of deal-making in the halls of government.

“What will be the future of the Mexican left?” columnist Juan E. Pardinas wrote in the Reforma newspaper, urging the party to steer clear of the radical populism of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Even by the fractious party’s usual standards, the tone of the PRD campaign has been bitter, with name-calling, bottle-throwing, reported death threats and open worry among some members over lasting damage to unity.

Ortega has decried what he called the “Stalinist” tactics of the Lopez Obrador camp, while taking pains not to point any fingers at the leader of the left.

Manuel Camacho Solis, who oversaw Lopez Obrador’s 2006 campaign, warned that the leadership battle had become a “blood war” and that a split in the Mexican left would give clear sailing to the kind of free-market agenda favored by Calderon.

So far, Lopez Obrador remains the left’s dominant figure at the forefront of the PRD, a broad hodgepodge of left-leaning political groups, grass-roots activists and refugees from the once-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

After Lopez Obrador’s razor-thin loss to Calderon in 2006, a defeat that he attributed to fraud, the PRD leader declared himself Mexico’s “legitimate president” and has spent much of the time since then touring towns and villages as titular head of a virtual government.

His methods drew ridicule from many commentators but bolstered support among rank-and-file PRD members who always viewed the party more as a vehicle for wresting greater social justice from an unfair system than for winning seats in Congress.

But the PRD also has plenty of conventional clout, with the second-largest number of seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Congress, and members eager to work inside the system as well as on the streets.

Calderon capitalized on the PRD’s ambivalence by making deals last year with its lawmakers to win their support for election- and tax-reform packages.

He gained the bloc’s backing again recently for a bill to overhaul the nation’s sclerotic justice system.

But some PRD lawmakers have been labeled as “sellouts” and “traitors” for being willing to compromise and, in effect, recognize Calderon as president.

Lopez Obrador’s critics say the party’s lackluster showings in state and local elections since its strong performance in 2006 are a sign that his tactics have alienated many Mexicans and hurt the PRD’s electoral prospects.

Midterm congressional elections will be held next year. Mexicans choose a new president in 2012.

These internal tensions have permeated the PRD’s leadership campaign. During a recent rally led by Lopez Obrador, two PRD lawmakers from the rival wing were pelted by party militants with fruit, bottles and sticks.

Lopez Obrador condemned the attack.

Days ago, Ortega protested what he called the “dirty war” tactics of his rivals.

Ortega’s foes fired back, accusing him of fraternizing with members of Calderon’s National Action Party.

One recent poll gave the edge in the PRD race to Encinas, the candidate backed by Lopez Obrador. A win for Lopez Obrador’s wing would be scored as a victory for his confrontational style and could serve to radicalize the party, said Jose Antonio Crespo, a political analyst.

Crespo said Lopez Obrador may still draw huge crowds as a protest leader but he has withered as a national political figure since 2006.

“To mobilize, he can count on millions,” Crespo said. “But to win an election, no.”

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ken.ellingwood@latimes.com