Election loser in Mexico to proclaim self 'president'

Chris Hawley
Republic Mexico City Bureau
Nov. 20, 2006 12:00 AM

MEXICO CITY - The loser of Mexico's presidential election plans to inaugurate himself today as the "legitimate president of Mexico," an act of defiance that could portend years of political chaos for President-elect Felipe Calderón.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador claims that his narrow defeat in the July 2 election was rigged, and he is summoning tens of thousands of supporters to Mexico City's main plaza for today's ceremony. The event coincides with Mexico's Revolution Day and comes less than two weeks before Calderón's inauguration.

"They're going to have their illegitimate government to protect the powerful, to protect those on top," López Obrador said of Calderón last week. "Our government will proudly protect and defend the majority of the people of Mexico."
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It is the latest in a series of challenges to Mexico's government, as many poor Mexicans express frustration that their lives have failed to improve after six years under conservative President Vicente Fox.

In recent months, leftists have launched armed uprisings in the southern city of Oaxaca, capital of Oaxaca state, and the central Mexican town of San Salvador Atenco, mounted a monthlong blockade of Mexico City's main boulevard and forced the cancellation of Fox's State of the Union address. This month, militants bombed the Federal Electoral Court, a bank and the headquarters of a rival political party.

López Obrador, of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, lost the July 2 presidential election by a mere 0.58 of a percentage point. Most foreign observers said the vote was clean and fair, and two recounts, one by voting authorities and a partial recount ordered by an electoral court, found no evidence of widespread fraud.

Most foreign governments have recognized Calderón, who is from Fox's National Action Party, or PAN, as the winner.

"President Calderón was elected by the majority, and in democracy the majority rules," Fox spokesman Rubén Aguilar said last week.

Challenging authority

But López Obrador has refused to concede the race, and the ensuing political crisis has become a test for Mexico's fledgling democracy. Before Fox's victory in 2000, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, had ruled Mexico virtually unopposed. Elections were decided in back rooms at the party's headquarters, and dissidents were silenced with payoffs or intimidation.

But political figures have had more freedom under Fox. López Obrador has taken this independence to a new level, saying he is determined to undermine the "illegitimate" government. He has named his own Cabinet and vowed to run a "shadow government" aimed at harassing and embarrassing Calderón at every turn. Supporters will get cards identifying them as "citizen representatives" of the shadow government, he said.

Democratic Revolutionary Party lawmakers are threatening to swarm the podium and thwart Calderón's Dec. 1 inauguration ceremony in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Congress. They did the same thing during Fox's Sept. 1 State of the Union address, forcing him to retreat to his official residence.

"We are determined to take action inside the Congress, and we are going to do it in the streets, too. We're going to do it in the streets on a massive scale," said Gerardo Fernández Norońa, spokesman for the Democratic Revolutionary Party.

The U.S. Embassy on Wednesday issued a warning to American visitors to beware of leftist protests and violence in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, López Obrador's star has faded among the public. A poll by the Reforma newspaper conducted a month after the election indicated that he would lose to Calderón by 24 percentage points if another vote were held.

López Obrador was also bruised by his party's defeat in the Oct. 15 gubernatorial election in his home state of Tabasco.

Remaining relevant

Most analysts call López Obrador's inauguration a stunt aimed at keeping him in the public eye, since he no longer holds an elected office, and of magnifying his party's influence in Congress. The Democratic Revolutionary Party controls 127 of the 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 26 of the 128 Senate seats.

"The fundamental goal is to put pressure on the beginning of Felipe Calderón's presidency," said Gustavo López, a political science professor at the Monterrey Institute of Technological and Advanced Studies. "López Obrador needs these themes and conflicts to stay relevant."

López Obrador also has made headlines in recent weeks by throwing his support behind leftist demonstrators in Oaxaca, a cause he had distanced himself from for months. The uprising in Oaxaca began as a teacher's strike in May but snowballed after Oaxaca state Gov. Ulises Ruiz tried to dislodge the strikers from their camps in June.

The protesters took over the city and drove out the police. Fox finally sent in federal police to restore order after an American journalist was killed in the violence on Oct. 27.

López Obrador has accused Fox of rescuing Ruiz in return for the support of the governor's party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, as Calderón begins his six-year term.

"They are maintaining this sinister, repressive, corrupt governor, Ulises Ruiz, because there is an agreement up there, in the top levels of the PRI and the PAN," López Obrador said at a rally last week.

On Nov. 6, sympathizers with the Oaxaca demonstrators set off bombs outside the electoral court, a branch of Canadian-owned Scotiabank and the headquarters of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. No one was injured in the blasts.

It was unclear why the Canadian bank was targeted, though demonstrators have accused foreign companies of pressuring Fox to intervene in Oaxaca.



Reach the reporter at chris.hawley@arizonarepublic.com.
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