Mexico ups airport, oil security against protests
By Anahi Rama
Fri Aug 4, 5:24 PM ET



MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico ramped up security at its international airport, power plants and oil refineries on Friday, as leftists challenging a tight presidential election result threatened to intensify crippling protests.


Supporters of leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who claim his narrow defeat in the July 2 election was rigged, warned they would step up civil disobedience unless the country's electoral court orders a full vote-by-vote recount.

"There is no other solution than a vote recount. Faced with any other scenario we will expand our civil resistance campaign," Lopez Obrador spokesman Gerardo Fernandez said.

"We want to warn that we will not agree with a partial recount nor with a sample."

With the center of Mexico City already paralyzed by protesters, the government took precautions against attempts to block the city's airport.

Dozens of police in riot gear patrolled the airport and approach roads. Some briefly detained a Reuters photographer who they thought was a leftist scouting out the area to organize a protest.

Some 100 protesters on the Mexican side of the border partially blocked a road bridge uniting the United States and Mexico across the Rio Grande.

Extra safeguards were also put in place at power plants, refineries and other oil industry facilities.

"Security has been stepped up," government spokesman Ruben Aguilar said. "Mexico City airport will always be in operation."

Ruling party conservative candidate Felipe Calderon, who won the presidential race by 244,000 votes, says he won cleanly, but he will accept a recount if there is one.

COURT DECISION

Lopez Obrador said on Thursday he would not let Calderon take power unless the electoral court validates his win with a recount.

The court, which holds a session on Saturday, would have to start any full or partial recount well before an August 31 deadline to ensure time to carry it through.

Mexico City's recently enlarged Benito Juarez airport is one of the busiest in Latin America, with hundreds of daily international and domestic flights that are crucial to the country's multibillion-dollar tourism industry.

The state-owned oil industry is another key economic pillar, generating one-third of government revenues, and a symbol of national sovereignty.

Lopez Obrador is from the oil-rich state of Tabasco and staged marches there and blockades of oil wells to protest a governor's race he lost in 1994.

"Security has been reinforced, as a preventive measure, to safeguard the operations of installations," Energy Minister Fernando Canales told reporters.

"We are convinced of the political players' sense of responsibility and of our experience of having the capacity to isolate social-economic issues, like energy generation and distribution, from national politics."

Calderon's team acknowledges the recount standoff is creating a political rift that would be a challenge for Calderon as president.

"It's definitely a problem," senior Calderon aide Juan Camilo Mourino told Reuters on Thursday.

He said, however, that the protests could backfire. While the leftist has rallied hundreds of thousands of people to back his cause, many in the capital are sick of the chaos.

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