Firebrand targets unlikely Mexico poll win You have to be dogged, or perhaps just lucky, to catch up with Mexico's best-known but most controversial politician. For the past five years, and after coming frustratingly close to victory in the 2006 presidential election, Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been on one long road trip. The tour has taken the firebrand leftwing leader and former mayor of Mexico City to the country's approximately 2,460 municipalities. And he claims it will be the foundation of a historic triumph in July's presidential vote. "We have built a base of 4m people across the country," he says. Each one of them has the task of recruiting five more. Recent poll numbers do not look good for Mexico's self-described "leader of social movements." This month, one respected survey put him third among the candidates with 23 per cent of the vote. In a country where 85 per cent of the population gets its news from one of two big television corporations, the village-square approach is light years from the media-heavy battering ram of his two main adversaries: Enrique Peña Nieto, the frontrunner and candidate for the centrist Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI); and Josefina Vázquez Mota of the ruling and conservative National Action party (PAN). The swarthy and irresistibly charismatic campaigner is not only unfazed but seems almost inspired by the challenge. The position of underdog suits him more than frontrunner - a fact amply illustrated by his 2006 defeat despite having held a strong lead for much of the campaign. "The right is divided," he says of his two main rivals. That is our opportunity. His determination should not surprise. This is the man who led street protests in his native Tabasco state when an election went against him. When he lost in 2006 by 243,934 votes from about 42m cast, he created havoc as he commanded followers to occupy a 12km stretch of Mexico City's main avenue with tents. "I am the legitimate president of Mexico," he cried to more than 100,000 loyalists crammed into Mexico City's largest plaza at the time. Today, as he sits in his office, sneaking handfuls of jelly sweets from a large glass jar and surrounded by paintings of revolutionary heroes and the bite of stale tobacco smoke, Mr López Obrador seems calmer than during those heady days. For one thing, he talks about unity and peace. This is an inclusive movement, with all social classes and religions. He insists his campaign will not be marked by his once-constant claims of "fraud" that followed the 2006 election. "The people already know that there was fraud," he says. And they know that it caused a lot of harm. Yet Mr López Obrador's proposals have changed little. Take the oil sector, where many experts say that the combination of a state oil monopoly and a constitutional ban on private investment is responsible for the 25 per cent fall in total production since 2004. His rivals, Mr Peña Nieto and Ms Vázquez Mota, have both said they will inject private capital into Pemex, the state concern - presumably in the same successful way Brazil did with Petrobras. But when asked, Mr López Obrador curls his lips and shakes his head, arguing that the problem is not the regime itself but the lack of honesty within it. "If we modernise Pemex and rid it of corruption, we can have cheap energy and be competitive," he says. Amlo, as the 58-year-old is affectionately known, describes his economic vision as "heterodox but rational." He rules out privatising state assets or raising taxes. But he says he will double public investment and pay for it by slashing current spending, closing tax loopholes - "big corporations do not pay taxes" - and excising corruption. He also says the economy will grow 6 per cent a year. His public finance numbers do not tally with those of the government or private sector economists. Nevertheless, he says recent meetings with Banamex - Citigroup's Mexican subsidiary - and other global brands such as Nestlé and PepsiCo have gone well. On security, likely to mark another guiding theme of the campaign, he says that only growth and social investment can provide a long-term solution to the drugs gangs. Here, he is particularly scathing of Felipe Calderón, Mexico's centre-right president whose narrow 2006 triumph sparked Amlo's protests. He says Mr Calderón's military-led crackdown on drug-trafficking organisations was "irresponsible ... he never evaluated how much crime had infiltrated municipal governments and the police. He just stirred up the hornets" nest." Under a government led by Mr López Obrador, the 50,000 soldiers Mr Calderón deployed to towns and cities would return to the barracks within six months - which he says is the time needed to create a single, unified police force to replace the myriad forces today. "There is no co-ordination," he says. There is no intelligence. He lingers on that thought for a moment. Then he stands up, palms some jelly sweets and says a polite goodbye.