http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impre ... abla=miami

BUSH: We will work with any president

BY JOSÉ CARREÑO/EL UNIVERSAL
March 24, 2005

WACO, Texas U.S. President George W. Bush said Wednesday that he would work with any leader Mexicans elect even a leftist after a meeting with President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin.

"I am willing to work with whoever is chosen by the Mexican people," Bush said, responding to a reporter's question about his feelings regarding a left-leaning candidate winning Mexico's 2006 presidential elections. He added, "I know that Mexico is proud of its democracy."

Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, from the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), has consistently led polls as the most popular potential presidential candidate in 2006.

López Obrador's followers praise his social programs, such as small pensions to the elderly, the disabled and single mothers, and his infrastructure and beautification projects in the capital. His opponents, however, accuse him of being a populist and say that his programs are unsustainable.

While some analysts here feel the conservative U.S. government might work to undermine the rise of a leftist government in Mexico, top U.S. officials such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have denied this.

The Texas summit of North American leaders produced agreements on security and other issues, but a long-stalled migration plan of central importance to Mexico was not discussed, although Bush pledged to continue trying to sell U.S. lawmakers on his proposal.

Back in Mexico, opposition lawmakers said migration should be pushed to the top of the U.S. agenda.

Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) Deputy Carlos Jiménez Macias, who works on the congressional Foreign Relations Commission, said Mexico's agenda was being ignored at the meeting.

"(Migration) should be a priority topic for the United States because of everything that it implies," Jiménez Macias said. "This includes security, which without a doubt is tied together with this issue."

Also on Wednesday, political analyst Ana MarÃÂ*a Salazar said Bush's comments on migration have created unrealistically high expectations that would be impossible to achieve. "It's been a lot of talk and no action," Salazar said.

However, she praised the security agreement reached at the summit, in which the three nations agreed to boost cooperation on terrorism and drugtrafficking.