MEXICO: In the hours before Tuesday's first presidential debate, people wondered who the winner would be - one of the four politicians on the stage, or the empty lectern.
Political analysts agreed the empty lectern would prove a formidable opponent. It was the space reserved for the man who until recently was the undisputed front-runner, former Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).
"The candidate of the PRD didn't come to this debate because he doesn't have any viable proposals," centre-right candidate Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party (PAN) claimed as the debate opened. "He preferred to turn his back on you."
That statement was one of the few to address directly the absence of Lopez Obrador, the only candidate on the ballot who chose to skip the debate, the first of two ahead of the July election.
Instead, Lopez Obrador's two top opponents in the campaign, Mr Calderon and Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), spent much of the debate attacking each other.
"Calderon, you're a good little boy when it comes to oratory ... but reality is something different," Mr Madrazo said. Among other things, he accused Mr Calderon of enriching himself with a loan from a government bank that he was running.
It remained unclear whether the absence of the left-wing candidate in the debate will hurt his chances with Mexico's voters. Mr Lopez Obrador's decision to skip the debate seemed like a smart one a few weeks ago, when polls showed he enjoyed a lead at or near double digits.
"Now, with the polls so close, it could be a serious mistake," said Jesus Silva-Herzog Marquez, a political analyst here.
The PRD candidate built his lead with large doses of charisma and by retelling the legend of his record as this city's mayor, a post he held until last year. Mr Lopez Obrador built a double-decker motorway and established pensions for the elderly. An opposition attempt to have him impeached on obscure corruption charges backfired - and no country embraces an underdog victor quite like Mexico.
But this month, the modern multimedia campaigning that has taken root in Mexico chipped away at the Lopez Obrador image. A poll released Tuesday by the firm Parametria showed Lopez Obrador with a two-point lead. Another by the Mexico City newspaper Reforma showed Mr Calderon, from President Vicente Fox's PAN, leading for the first time, by 3 percentage points.
Tuesday's debate was seen as a golden opportunity for Mr Calderon, a 43-year-old technocrat with only limited experience in elected office. "Felipe Calderon is the candidate with the most modest political career," said Mr Silva-Herzog. "His campaign has been built on a decidedly negative strategy. People still don't know who he really is."
For weeks, Mr Calderon's campaign has hammered Mr Lopez Obrador with a series of ads that suggest a Lopez Obrador presidency could bring economic collapse. "Lopez Obrador is a danger to Mexico," one ad intoned.
Election officials ruled the language in some of the ads violated Mexico's strict campaign laws and they were withdrawn.
Still, observers here say Mr Calderon's ads have succeeded in turning attention away from Mr Lopez Obrador's central campaign theme: that a decade of economic reform, including a free trade accord with the US and Canada, has failed to improve the lives of millions of Mexicans.
Instead, Mr Calderon has managed to insert doubt about whether Mr Lopez Obrador is too radical to be president.
Mr Lopez Obrador agreed to a single debate because his opponents were originally proposing six. "The idea was to drown out our campaign with debates but we stuck to our position," he said.
And his campaign unsuccessfully petitioned the election authorities to remove the empty lectern from Tuesday's debate. During the telecast of the debate, it appeared on the screen only fleetingly.
Rather than attack the absent candidate, Mr Calderon tried to present himself as the only politician who could guarantee Mexico's economic stability. But when Mr Madrazo attacked his ethics, Mr Calderon responded by producing a picture of a Miami apartment Mr Madrazo allegedly purchased with bribes received as a senator and governor.
The debate was seen as perhaps the final chance for Mr Madrazo to revive a flagging campaign dogged by allegations of corruption. He lashed out at almost every opportunity at Mr Calderon, equating him with the perceived failures of the Fox government to address poverty and other issues.