Mayor Polishes Political Images

MEXICO CITY —  A popular walkway that is usually bordered by dazzling poster art got an unusual exhibit this week: photographs of public works projects initiated by Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Some see the images as harmless self-glorification. Others consider them propaganda, the latest gambit in a campaign by Lopez Obrador, who leads opinion polls for next year’s presidential election, to bolster public support and avoid being disqualified from the race.

Recent exhibits along the mile-long stretch of Paseo de la Reforma fronting Chapultepec Park included photos of historic Mexico City scenes, the country’s abundant wildlife and aerial shots of its dramatic topography. But Wednesday, the mayor unveiled prosaic shots of freeways, high schools, street repairs and landscaping.

Viewers’ reactions were divided.

“He’s using public resources to promote himself, and in that way he is inconsistent,” businessman Manuel Benitez said Friday, strolling past the photos with his 2-year-old daughter, Magda.

Benitez supports the mayor because of his anticorruption stand but said, “He talks one way and acts another.”

Jose Torres, a retired bus driver who began receiving a $70 monthly pension after Lopez Obrador took office, said the mayor had every right to advertise his achievements.

“He has bought new subway trains, built high schools and hospitals. He makes promises and keeps them, unlike the president,” Torres said.

A legislative showdown that will decide the mayor’s political fate is fast approaching. As early as March 28, a federal legislative caucus will decide whether to draw up a bill to strip him of immunity from prosecution, a privilege given to all high Mexican officials.

If the full chamber approves such a bill, the federal attorney general is expected to file a criminal case against the mayor alleging abuse of power.

Lopez Obrador is accused of ignoring a 2002 court order not to build a hospital access road over a disputed, 50-foot piece of land. Although the alleged misdeed is fairly innocuous, any criminal proceeding would legally disqualify him from running for office until the case is adjudicated.

President Vicente Fox of the National Action Party, or PAN, has said that Lopez Obrador should be prosecuted, declaring that the rule of law is at stake.

The mayor and his Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD, say the case is nothing more than a political maneuver to prevent him from running for president.

Constitutional expert Lorenzo Cordova of Mexico’s National Autonomous University agreed. Cordova said many judicial orders are issued every day across Mexico and that a significant proportion are ignored by public officials without prosecution.

He said he knew of no previous case in which a public official had been prosecuted for ignoring a court order. “This would be a first in Mexican history,” said Cordova, a former advisor to the Federal Election Institute. “This is a case of selective justice and one that is eminently political in its application.”

One of Lopez Obrador’s allies in Congress, Horacio Duarte, said Thursday that the legal basis for stripping the mayor of his immunity is so murky that the proposal will never reach the full chamber for a vote.

The mayor and his legal fight have dominated the country’s political discourse for weeks. Fox and Lopez Obrador fought a lengthy war of words before the president declared a moratorium on the sniping last week.

Legal points aside, observers said the mayor’s public works and his effort to publicize them were effective politics.

Mexicans “don’t think of the criticism. They think of what the mayor is doing,” said Daniel Lund of the Mexico City-based polling firm MUND Americas. “And most of it sounds good in a society where most people think the biggest problem is that we’re stuck.”