In Mexico, presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is expected to hold a massive campaign rally today in Mexico City ahead of Sunday’s election. Under Mexican law, candidates must stop campaigning tonight. The latest polls show the populist Lopez Obrador has a slight lead over the conservative Felipe Calderon. Lopez Obrador has been running on a progressive platform calling for greater aid to the poor; free medical care and food subsidies for the elderly; the rewriting of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement; and the end to the further privatization of the country’s oil and gas industries. Meanwhile Felipe Calderon has received the strong backing of the business community. During a campaign stop on Tuesday Calderon warned that Lopez Obrador would ruin Mexico’s economy:

• Felipe Calderon:”Mexico already lived through these lies, the deception that they want to bring on the people. I tell you, friends, the terrible story cannot be repeated, the cost of the government’s debt that our children will pay, and the final economic crisis that the poorest among the poor has paid. I tell you friends, this is not the path, the path is from this side, this path is the one that guarantees economic stability and growth and investment to generate jobs.”

That was Mexican presidential candidate Felipe Calderon. Meanwhile Andres Lopez Obrador rejected the accusation.

• Andres Lopez Obrador: “Nothing is going to happen. The only thing that will happen is that Mexico will no longer be a country of the privileged, that the government will not longer be a committee to serve a minority. Now the government will be for all, the country will be for all and for this, we are in this movement, in this fight.”