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MCT)
MEXICO CITY - Followers of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador strangled traffic in the Mexican capital Monday as part of their campaign for a vote recount, and the leftist presidential candidate offered a personal apology to increasingly angry commuters.
"We are not rebels without a cause," Lopez Obrador said in the central Zocalo square, where he is living in makeshift camps with supporters. "It's not that we want to be here, it's not that we enjoy it, it's necessary. We offer apologies for the inconveniences that this movement might cause."
Lopez Obrador, who apparently lost the July 2 balloting to ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon by about 244,000 votes, is trying to pressure the seven-judge Federal Electoral Tribunal to order a recount. The panel must make a decision by Sept. 6.
Critics and even supporters of the leftist leader, such as the Mexico City newspaper La Jornada, warned that the aggressive tactics would backfire in a metropolitan area of 18 million people where commutes often average hours in each direction.
"The establishment of camps along the roadways constitutes, separately from a political error that will give ammunition to critics and drive away supporters, an abuse of the rights of others ... that should be guaranteed by the city government," La Jornada said in an editorial Monday.
Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN, called on interim Mexico City Mayor Alejandro Encinas to enforce a city law banning the blockage of major thoroughfares. Lopez Obrador championed the law in 2000, when he was mayor.
Encinas, like Lopez Obrador, is a member of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD. The city government said it would do nothing to remove the protesters.
Millions of motorists squeezed onto already jammed city streets after Lopez Obrador announced the creation Sunday of 47 protest camps, with 16 of them in the lanes of downtown's main east-west thoroughfare, Paseo de la Reforma, and the rest in the historic center.
TV helicopters showed the camps, along with small tents, up and down Reforma along with miles and miles of traffic jams in every direction.
Public transportation, likewise, was heavy and slow.
Commuter Jorge Hernandez told Radio 13 that the blockages were costing him on their very first day.
"I haven't been able to find work for five months, and today, on the very day of a job interview, I couldn't get there on time because of the demonstrations," he said.
In a chaotic news conference in the Zocalo, where reporters were shouted down by protesters, aides to Lopez Obrador said the "fight for democracy" through civil disobedience was more important than a few inconveniences.
Business leaders warned, however, that the historic downtown district, which saw a rebirth while Lopez Obrador was mayor from 2000 to 2005, would suffer from the protests.
Mexico City's Chamber of Commerce put the loss at about $15 million per day. The highly popular double-decker Turi-Bus had to suspend its tours of the capital, and foreign tourists seemed bewildered by smelly camps in the Zocalo.
Mexico's stock market held steady Monday, losing 0.77 percent. Although there have been fears of foreign investment slowing because of the political crisis, financial analysts remain hopeful Calderon will be declared president-elect by the electoral tribunal.
Lopez Obrador's aides also took issue Monday with newspaper reports putting attendance at his Sunday rally at a few hundred thousand. Organizers claim the number was between 2 million and 3 million.
The Mexico City newspaper Reforma said it calculated the size of Sunday's crowd using satellite images. By doing so, it was able to determine the number of people per square meter. It then multiplied that by the total space filled in the Zocalo and surrounding streets.
Reforma said its estimate, certified by three notaries, put the maximum number of people in the Zocalo at 135,000 and the total number of protesters at 348,000.
The president of the PRD, Leonel Cota, disputed that figure and called on the media for more "truthfulness" when covering acts of civil disobedience.
As protesters shouted at reporters, a top aide to Lopez Obrador, former Zacatecas Gov. Ricardo Monreal, asked the crowd to show more respect.
"They are doing the best they can given editorial pressures," he said.
