Mexican author calls Trump his own worst enemy

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump “doesn’t need any more enemies than himself”, acclaimed Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska said Friday.

“Donald Trump refers to ‘p—-y,’ the woman’s genitalia, and turns all women against him”, Poniatowska told EFE, insisting that the real estate mogul’s intemperate words are helping Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

The Republican’s campaign suffered a serious blow earlier this month with the emergence of a 2005 video in which an off-camera Trump is heard making lewd remarks about women.

Poniatowska said she never expected Trump’s presidential bid to get this far.

“I thought he was ridiculous, with a ridiculous hairdo, who instead of accepting his baldness came up with combing his hair forward”, she said. “Sometimes, I even feel sorry for Hillary Clinton, that she has to contend with such a despicable rival.”

Poniatowska, an enthusiastic supporter of Mexico’s most prominent leftist politician, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said she finds Hillary Clinton a more sympathetic character than her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Hillary, the writer said, seems more authentic than Bill.

Poniatowska said that a Clinton victory in the U.S. could encourage a similar development in Mexico, where “people will say ‘why not a woman?’”

But the award-winning writer hastened to add that she would not welcome a presidential run by former first lady Margarita Zavala of the rightist National Action Party, who has announced she will seek her party’s nomination for the 2018 race.

The more than 100,000 deaths attributable to the war on drugs launched by Zavala’s husband, Felipe Calderon, during his 2006-2012 term would likely doom the former first lady’s candidacy, Poniatowska said.