Mexican ex-president, gubernatorial candidate trade insults

Mexican former President Felipe Calderon and a candidate for governor of the northern state of Nuevo Leon have embarked on a war of words that began when Calderon compared the latter to late Venezuelan head of state Hugo Chavez.

The verbal spat started early this week during an appearance by Calderon, who governed Mexico from 20062012, at a rally in Nuevo Leon for candidates of his conservative National Action Party, or PAN.

In his remarks, Calderon compared Jamie Rodriguez, an independent known by the nickname “Bronco,” to the socialist Chavez, who died of cancer in 2013, saying he was “very rough, boastful and bigheaded.”

“These types end up being authoritarian leaders who repress, who become corrupt, who are inefficient and put their opponents in jail. That can’t be the alternative for Nuevo Leon,” the expresident added.

In another public event Wednesday, Rodriguez responded by saying that Calderon “was still drunk or hungover” when he made his comments and insisted that he has “nothing to do with Hugo Chavez.”

Calderon immediately fired back on Twitter, writing that someone whose way of dealing with a serious issue is to “insult, offend or attack reveals his true intolerant nature. When he’s in power, he’ll become authoritarian.”

Rodriguez leads the polls ahead of next month’s elections in Nuevo Leon, a state that is currently governed by the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and which in recent years has been the scene of a violent turf battle among drug cartels.

Rodriguez, who survived two attacks by organized crime in 2011 while serving as mayor of the rural Nuevo Leon municipality of Garcia, would become the first independent candidate to win a Mexican state governorship if he comes out on top in the balloting.

Mexico is holding its midterm elections on June 7, with 500 seats in Congress; nine governorships, including that of Nuevo Leon; and some 1,500 local offices up for grabs.