Thread: Mexico left takes election protest back to streets

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00043.html

Mexico left takes election protest back to streets

By Catherine Bremer
Reuters
Sunday, July 30, 2006; 2:31 AM



MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the left-winger who claims he was robbed of victory in Mexico's contested presidential election, will lead a massive protest rally on Sunday to press for a vote-by-vote recount.

Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to join the march across Mexico City to its central Zocalo, one of the world's largest squares, where Lopez Obrador will announce details of a civil disobedience campaign to push his cause.

Mexico has been thrust into a political crisis by the election, which saw Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, beaten by ruling party conservative Felipe Calderon by just around 244,000 votes out of 41 million cast.

Lopez Obrador, who campaigned on promises to help Mexico's poor with ambitious welfare and infrastructure programs, is challenging the result before Mexico's highest electoral court. He says he will only accept the result if there is a recount.

While stressing his protests will stay peaceful, Lopez Obrador upped the ante last week by declaring he was the country's legitimate president and warning his supporters had plenty of energy for more protests.

The protest on Sunday will be Lopez Obrador's third since the election, and could be the biggest.

"We are working intensely. It's going to be a historic march, supporters are coming from all over the country," said Jesus Ortega, a senior aide to the leftist candidate.

PEACEFUL PROTEST EXPECTED

Despite growing tensions, analysts expect the protests to remain peaceful as Lopez Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, waits for the electoral court to make its call on allegations of vote-rigging over the next few weeks.

"The PRD is worried about the violence it could generate and is trying to avoid it. I don't see violent organizations among Lopez Obrador's backers," said political analyst Carlos Sirvent of Sunday's march.

However large the protest, it is unlikely to directly influence the seven electoral court judges who have until August 31 to decide whether there is a case to reopen ballot boxes.

Lopez Obrador claims vote counts were fiddled at more than half the country's roughly 130,000 polling stations.

The judges' choices range from throwing out Lopez Obrador's case and declaring Calderon the winner, to ordering a partial or full recount or even annulling the election and calling for a repeat. An annulment is thought highly unlikely and, without it, the court must formally declare Mexico's president-elect by September 6.

Calderon insists the vote was clean and that no recount is needed. While his party's lawyers are fighting the PRD at the electoral court, he is trying to pull support from other opposition parties for reforms he plans to push through once he takes office in December.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/n ... ote30.html

Sunday, July 30, 2006 - 12:00 AM

Mexico seethes as it awaits declaration of winner

By Laurence Iliff
The Dallas Morning News

MEXICO CITY — From the looks of it, Mexico's recent presidential election never happened.

Leftist leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador is calling on supporters to gather in the capital today for his biggest rally yet. Rival Felipe Calderón plans a tour of the nation. Supporters of both sport color-coded ribbons and exchange insults.

But the election is over, the people have voted, and the ballots have been counted, leaving a razor-thin lead for Calderón, a conservative. All that's missing is the final seal of approval from the Federal Electoral Tribunal.

And there's the rub.

Without an official winner, Mexico's presidential race is now at the height of what can only be called the post-campaign campaign, with López Obrador screaming fraud at the top of his lungs in the hope of a tribunal-ordered recount, and Calderón warning of looming violence.

Analysts say the danger is rising day by day, as the tribunal takes its time poring over complaints of fraud and miscounted ballots, and López Obrador ratchets up his rhetoric, most recently declaring himself "president of Mexico by the choice of the majority of Mexicans."

López Obrador, of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, received 14.75 million votes out of more than 41 million cast in the five-way race. Calderón, from President Vicente Fox's ruling National Action Party, received 15 million.

López Obrador, who claimed all year that he would win by 10 percentage points, "is challenging the system, pushing the government and establishment as far as he can," said Ana Maria Salazar, a Latin America security analyst and former Pentagon official. "How far? I don't think even he knows."

A month after the voting, Mexicans are more divided than ever as López Obrador threatens acts of civil resistance that could close airports, highways and perhaps even Mexico-Texas border crossings. His followers protested inside a Wal-Mart and outside the Mexican stock market last week.

Today's rally is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of López Obrador supporters, and the candidate is promising important announcements that could set the tone for coming weeks.

"Expect more radical measures, measures that will make life difficult for everyone," said PRD spokesman Gerardo Fernández Noroña in an interview. "There will be a social crisis if there isn't a vote-for-vote recount."

The electoral tribunal has until Sept. 6 to declare a winner, with hearings scheduled this week. Regional tribunals last week rejected charges of vote fraud and calls for a recount in some congressional races.

Calderón, saying he would not wait for the electoral tribunal's decision "sitting down," met Friday with subsistence farmers. "Mexico doesn't have time to wait," he said.

Lopez Obrador, who campaigned on promises to help Mexico's poor with ambitious welfare and infrastructure programs . . .

This certainly is not what Foxy and the Shrub want. It would defeat their NAU agenda. My goodness, a self-sustaining Mexico. Now there's a thought