MEXICO CITY (AP) — Business groups are once again attacking the front-runner in Mexico's July 1 presidential race, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The Mexican Business Council said in a statement Thursday it "categorically rejects the slanderous and offensive statements" made by Lopez Obrador this week.

Lopez Obrador claimed business leaders were trying to persuade the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party to join forces with the second-place candidate to reverse Lopez Obrador's commanding lead in the polls.

Lopez Obrador said in interviews Thursday that some businessmen oppose him because "they don't want to stop stealing."

Lopez Obrador is a leftist who dislikes the current administration's market-oriented reforms.

In 2006, business groups took out ads against Lopez Obrador that may have cost him the election.