COLUMN: MEXICO'S LEFTIST CANDIDATE WOULD NOT BE A CHAVEZ

MEXICO CITY -- If left-of-center candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador wins Sunday's presidential election, as several polls suggest, Mexico may put a halt to its two-decade-old process of halfhearted economic reforms, and could revert to a milder version of its 20th century populist nationalism. Judging from what I heard when I interviewed him at length more than a year ago, López Obrador is not likely to join the Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia bloc of radical leftist regimes, although he would upgrade Mexico's strained relations with these countries. Read the full column here.