Fbaezer, who is Jorge Castaneda, presidential candidate?

Posted on Fri, Mar. 26, 2004
Former foreign minister to run for president of Mexico
By Susana Hayward
Knight Ridder Newspapers

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's former Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda, a controversial political scientist, has announced he will run for president in 2006 as an independent candidate.

Castaneda, 50, was pivotal as an adviser to Vicente Fox when the conservative National Action Party (PAN) defeated the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which had ruled Mexico since 1929.

But Castaneda blasted the PAN, PRI and Mexico's other large party, the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), in a Thursday night television commercial announcing his run.

"There are many of us who confront a wall built by the leaderships of the three major parties," Castaneda said. "Their cynicism and corruption proves the country matters little to them, and ... people are fed up."

It's unclear how Castaneda will pursue his candidacy without representing a political party. Castaneda said he opened a bank account to obtain funds, but there are few provisions in Mexican law for independent candidacies. The Mexican Supreme Court ruled last week that a party or political movement must have at least 154,000 members and a presence in 200 of Mexico's 300 electoral districts. Only representatives of a recognized national movement can be on the presidential ballot.

But Castaneda baptized his lone quixotic campaign as a movement - "We are many. Citizens Awakening" - and he could easily qualify as a candidate by holding local conventions in 200 districts. "There are many of us who belong to the party of nonparties," he said.

His candidacy adds heat to a political race that has started almost three years before elections. Contenders are lining up by the dozen to get voters' attention and succeed Fox, and there are already signs the race will be messy, with smear campaigns looming earlier than usual.

Castaneda accused Mexico's three major parties of "kidnapping democracy ... in favor of their personal interests."

Castaneda, a U.S.-Mexico expert who once belonged to the Communist Party, resigned as foreign minister on Jan. 10, 2003, saying he was frustrated by the lack of progress in talks to implement immigration reforms with the Bush administration. But it was also rumored that he was weighing his presidential chances.

Considered volatile, abrupt and snobbish by many critics, it's uncertain whether the highly educated and upper-class Castaneda, the author of many books and whose father was also a foreign minister, will muster enough support in this nation, where 40 percent of the population live in abject poverty.

Leaders from all parties criticized Castaneda's decision.

"Independent candidacies create the risk of fissure in the judicial scheme of democracy and are not an opportunity of renewal or options for voters," said Emilio Chayffet, the PRI leader in Congress.

Castaneda, who holds a master's degree in political science and doctorates in economy and history from the University of Paris, has long ruffled feathers. While foreign minister, he harshly criticized Cuba for its human rights violations and caused an unprecedented cooling of relations, inflaming Fidel Castro who charged that Mexico was selling out to U.S. interests.

Castaneda surprised many when he joined Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive and avid promoter of free trade, because of his leftist views and prior criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mexico's presidential race is shaping up to be unprecedented in its contentiousness. Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the PRD, is considered the front-runner, but recent disclosures of high officials in his administration accepting bribes and gambling in Las Vegas have hurt his standing. He's now running neck and neck in recent polls with PRI national leader Roberto Madrazo and PAN Interior Minister Santiago Creel, neither of whom has announced his candidacy.

Fox's wife, Marta Sahagun, also has high popularity ratings and has said she's considering a presidential run.