Voters decide if Mexico becomes next country to move left

MEXICO CITY -- After a campaign that split open Mexico's deep class divisions, voters were deciding Sunday whether to elect a free-spending leftist who pledges to put the poor first or a conservative politician who says private investment and free markets are the keys to prosperity.\nThe presidential election is the first since Vicente Fox's stunning victory in 2000 ended 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. The vote will determine whether Mexico becomes the latest Latin American country to move to the left.\nPolls predict a close race between conservative Felipe Calderon of Fox's party and leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor. The PRI's Roberto Madrazo was running a distant third, ahead of two minor candidates.\nAlso being elected were five governors and both houses of Congress.\nAccompanied by his two children, Lopez Obrador showed up early to vote in his middle-class Mexico City neighborhood. He made no comments.\nWaiting in the line was Armando Juarez, 46, a high school teacher, who said he would vote for Lopez Obrador, who has promised to govern for the poor first.\n"I believe he represents hope, especially for people with low salaries who are looking for a more egalitarian country," Juarez said.\nOfficials hoped to announce a winner within hours of the 9 p.m. EDT closing of the last poll, based on a quick count. But they cautioned they would wait if the race was too close.\nThe election capped months of mudslinging and angry rhetoric. Lopez Obrador accused Calderon of catering to the rich, while Calderon warned that Lopez Obrador would put at risk the low-interest loans and other gains that helped swell the middle class during Fox's tenure.\nCalderon compared Lopez Obrador to Venezuela's radical President Hugo Chavez, but Lopez Obrador named a conservative economic team that reassured investors, even as he spent his campaign reaching out to the 50 million Mexicans who scrape by on a few dollars a day.\nAs he launched his campaign in a dusty mountain town with the lowest standard of living in Mexico, Lopez Obrador promised: "I'm going to listen to everyone. I'm going to respect everyone. But the poor and forgotten of Mexico will get preferential treatment."\nCalderon promised to be the "jobs president" and distanced himself from Fox even as he pledged to stay the course of economic stability.\nMadrazo painted himself as the alternate to the "radical left and intolerant right." But many questioned how long his party, which suffered infighting and defections during the campaign, would survive past the election.\nAll three candidates promised to strengthen relations with the United States while opposing increased border security measures unpopular in Mexico, including building more border walls and President Bush's deployment of National Guard troops.\nMexican law limits presidents to one term, and Fox plans to retire to his ranch in December after his replacement is sworn in. He was casting his vote at a school near the presidential residence.\nThe estimated 10 million Mexicans living in the United States were allowed to vote from abroad for the first time, but the 41,000 ballots they requested were not likely to make much of a difference. The effort, thrown together last year to beat electoral deadlines, was not well publicized in the United States.\nThousands of those who missed out were heading south Sunday to cast votes at ballot centers set up along the border.