Ebrard: Don't rule left out

The widespread consensus in the Mexican media is that the left wing will find the 2012 presidential election hard going unless a coalition can be formed like in 2006.

The biggest problem is that Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) have both indicated their willingness to run for the presidency which would likely hamper the left's shot at power.

The Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) leadership is due to change in March and Ebrard pleaded for unity and a programme to bring the left together in a speech Saturday in Mexico City.

Not wanting to talk much about the party's problems, apart from his rallying cry for unity, Ebrard instead attacked the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the National Action Party (PAN) of President Felipe Calderon. Ebrard said that Mexico is the country with least growth in Latin America over the last 20 years and laid the blame squarely at those that have held power.

"That means that our country has an increased number of poor people every year and that we are a country in which the majority can't prosper," said the Mexico City mayor.

Ebrard said Brazil's leftist government had helped 21 million climb out of poverty over the last eight years in which time poverty in Mexico has risen.

Ebrard laid into the PRI saying, "It's more of the same." He added that the PRI, which ruled Mexico for 71 years, is trying to spread fear in order that people fall into the trap: "Better the bad that you know than the good that is to yet to be known."

In an attack that has caused fierce criticism from the PRI, Ebrard stated that the states the the PRI govern are the most violent and cited Guerrero and Chihuahua as examples.

In the face what Ebrard deems the PRI's fearmonging, the 51-year-old said the left should respond with care.

"It's our moment and our obligation and we have to be prepared for it," said Ebrard. "We're the ones that have to move this forward."

Of the 2012 elections, Ebrard said he had no problem with AMLO and that it is those that are opposed to the left that are heavily promoting the idea. AMLO seems to think that he and Ebrard can work together to knock what he calls "the mafia" out of office.

Whether Ebrard will agree is a completely different matter.