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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Chavez Funded Calderon's PRD Opponent in 2006 |
| 2010-12-15 |
| Google Translate Mexican president Felipe Calderon told US Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) in October 2009 he was aware that Venezuela president Hugo Chavez funded one of his opponents in the 2006 Mexican presidential election, according to various online news sources. This new information, brought to light through a leaked US State Department of State cable two weeks ago, also revealed that Chavez was involved in several activities in Latin America, termed "everywhere", by Calderon, especially in Mexico. The cable detailed the content of an October 19th, 2009 meeting between Calderon and Admiral Dennis Blair in Mexico City, then the US DCI, who was fired by President Obama in May, 2010 over an unrelated matter. Calderon told Blair he concluded that Chavez gave money to Partido Revolucion Democratica candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for his 2006 presidential run which he narrowly lost by less than a half percentage point. Lopez Obrador has denied the allegation. Following the election Lopez Obrador charged that an outside group headed by former Mexican president Vicente Fox, unfairly influenced the election by campaigning on behalf of Calderon. The issue was brought to court by Lopez Obrador after the election, but was ultimately dismissed by a court. The PRD was originally a coalition of several Mexican communist and socialists parties formed in 1989, and is the most left wing of all major Mexican national political parties. Another issue raised at the meeting was an warning by Calderon that in order to counter Chavez's ambitions in Latin American, the US would need to engage the incoming Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's first female president and like her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a leftist and a member of the democratic socialist Workers Party. The day after the revelation about Chavez funding the PRD, Lopez Obrador issued a Twitter tweet challenging Calderon to prove the his claim. |
| Posted by:badanov |