England and Belgium battle it out for top spot in their group on Thursday as the remaining teams at the World Cup digest Germany’s astonishing exit from the tournament in Russia.
Both sides — packed with Premier League talent — have sailed through Group G, winning their two games and are now in the curious situation of weighing up whether they even want to top the section.
With his anti-corruption platform, the fiery former Mexico City mayor, widely known as “AMLO,” looks virtually unstoppable heading into Sunday’s vote.
Opinion polls have given him a double-digit lead for months. Two polls released Wednesday — the final day for campaigning and polls — put his advantage at more than 20 points.
Sick of endemic corruption and horrific violence fueled by the country’s powerful drug cartels, many Mexicans are keen for any alternative to the two parties that have governed for nearly a century: the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the conservative National Action Party (PAN).
“The policies we’ve been applying for the past 30 years haven’t worked. We haven’t even had economic growth,” Lopez Obrador told thousands of cheering supporters as he wrapped up his campaign.
“What’s grown is corruption, poverty, crime and violence. That’s why we’re going to send their policies to the dustbin of history.”
Such attacks have left Lopez Obrador’s rivals scrambling to distance themselves from their parties’ legacies, while also warning that Lopez Obrador’s ideas are dangerous for the country.
Judging by the opinion polls, the PRI and PAN candidates — ex-finance minister Jose Antonio Meade and former speaker of Congress Ricardo Anaya, respectively — are having a hard time selling that message.
Both were holding out hope they would manage to unite the anti-AMLO vote and win.
“Our coalition is the only one that can beat Lopez Obrador,” Anaya, 39, said at his final rally in the central city of Leon.
“I’m calling on all good people, including those in other parties, those with no party…. I am explicitly calling on you to cast a pragmatic vote.”
Meade, 49, meanwhile insisted: “the silent majority will win us this election.”
– Man of mystery –
Lopez Obrador, 64, has clashed with Mexico’s business community, with some warning he might pursue Venezuela-style socialist policies that could wreck Latin America’s second-largest economy.
Seeking to soothe the markets, he has backpedalled on some of his most controversial proposals.
Instead of reversing outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto’s landmark energy reform, he now proposes simply reviewing the existing contracts privatizing the oil sector.
And he has remained vague on a proposed amnesty for criminals, his idea to deal with violence that left a record 25,000 murders last year.
Many of Mexico’s 88 million voters are not quite sure what Lopez Obrador represents, other than something new. But in these elections, that may be enough.
“Who cares if they say he’s going to do a bad job running the country? These other politicians have experience, they speak who knows how many languages, and look where that got us. They robbed us, they’re corrupt,” said Teresa Rivera, 68, a maid who had been standing in line since 5:00 am to see Lopez Obrador’s evening rally.
– Mexican Trump? –
Mexico’s next president faces a laundry list of challenges, including crime, corruption, a lackluster economy and a complicated relationship with the United States under President Donald Trump, whose anti-trade and anti-immigration policies have turned diplomacy with Mexico’s largest trading partner into a minefield.
Lopez Obrador has vowed to “put (Trump) in his place.”
Ironically, some commentators have drawn parallels between the two: both are free-trade skeptics who have fired up a disgruntled base with anti-establishment campaigns.
But unlike the American billionaire, Lopez Obrador has built an image as an ascetic everyman.
“I’m going to halve the presidential salary and continue living in my own house,” he said in a widely circulated campaign video.
“I’m going to govern by example, with austerity.”