Mexico finds itself in election frenzy for next year's presidential race

With Mexico's presidential election still a year away, a string of candidates from the country's three major parties have already begun gunning their campaign motors with the hopes of making an early splash on the national political stage.

Election fever has gripped the country - much of it generated by the possible contenders themselves - but officials from Mexico's political forces say they don't want to wear out voters before the actual race begins or break the country's strict election rules.

Still, the Tuesday editions of Mexico's major dailies were filled with stories about the behind-the-scenes movements among those who are aspiring to succeed President Felipe Calderón. Seven contenders from Calderón's ruling National Action Party (PAN) met on Tuesday to decide how to shorten the list of potential candidates to three. While speculation intensified as to who will make the final cut, a top PAN official assured that it was too early to talk about Calderón's successor.

Heriberto Félix Guerra, secretary of social development, said Calderón still has a lot of work ahead of him for the PAN to be discussing candidates. One of his major goals is to end the drug-related violence that has claimed the lives of 40,000 people since he took office in 2006.

But Calderón hasn't had much success in defeating the cartels, which control much of the northern states by waging terror and putting police and local officials on their payrolls.

Recent polls show voters appear to favor bringing back the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which governed Mexico for more than 70 years until 2000 when the PAN's Vicente Fox was elected. The PRI now governs in 19 of Mexico's 32 states after winning key gubernatorial races earlier this month. Enrique Peña Nieto, the outgoing governor of Mexico state, is seen as the PRI's leading candidate. But party president Humberto Moreira Valdés said Tuesday the PRI "won't get ahead of itself" and would select its candidate in February. "Those who are rushing things in a pre-campaign race are breaking election law," the Mexico City daily El Universal quoted Moreira as saying in reference to the PAN.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a former presidential candidate for the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), posted a YouTube video on Tuesday in which he offers proposals to create jobs to keep young people from immigrating to the United States. López Obrador, who narrowly lost to Calderón in 2006, is the leader of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena).

The elections are scheduled for July 1.