running significantly ahead of all other likely candidates in all presidential election polls and seemed to be immune to political scandals involving his inner circle. Political and social reactions in favor of the desafuero The political case for the desafuero was championed mainly by the federal government, the governing Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) and the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). On its face, their main argument was the full enforcement of the law. This argument resonated with many sectors of society long accustomed to suffer the selective enforcement of the law according to political or economic considerations. To others, however, this argument rang hollow in view of the lack of prosecution of several multimillion-dollar financial scandals involving prominent members of the PRI and, to a lesser extent, the PAN. Towards the end of the desafuero process, amid increasing perception of its politicization, this argument became less tenable, with support for the desafuero ultimately coming almost exclusively from militants of the PRI and PAN. Political actors and reactions against the desafuero Predictably, arguments against the desafuero came, at least at the start, from López Obrador's Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) and other members and militants of the Mexican political left. By early 2005 AMLO promoted different forms of protest against the desafuero: posters declaring "No al desafuero" or similar slogans, seen mostly in March, making a census of political and grassroots movements willing to show their support for López Obrador, different political acts by his party, the PRD. López Obrador's media strategy was to contrast his prosecution with that of killings attributed to previous governments (1968, 1971) and financial scandals (1994-1995) where almost no convictions were made (but heavy fines applied in some of the latter), and emphasizing his status as the leader in the polls. He also compared himself with Francisco I. Madero, a political candidate in 1910 who was imprisoned by dictator Porfirio Díaz and eventually became leader of the Mexican Revolution and the next president. He also has compared himself with international civil rights activists who suffered prison at some moment of their life. He also claims his process to be a political plot orchestrated by, among other top politicians, former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, former President Fox, and PAN presidential pre-candidate Santiago Creel. As the desafuero process gained momentum, more independent voices began to express their opposition to it. This included noted Mexican intellectuals, much of