Thread: Calderon-The Politician-His Election History

Mexican President Calderon is touring the US prior to US Presidential Elections to meddle in our electorial process and domestic affairs.

CONSIDER THE DOUBLE STANDARD:
"When in Mexico the U.S. State Department reminds U.S. citizens to avoid participating in demonstrations and other activities that might be deemed political by Mexican authorities. The Mexican Constitution prohibits political activities by foreigners, and such actions may result in detention and/or deportation." U.S. State Department

CONSIDER THE SOLE DECISION MAKERS IN SPP: President Calderon, President Bush and Prime Minister Harper.
By contrast, the SPP is not a treaty and will never be submitted to the U.S., Mexican, or Canadian legislatures. Instead it attempts to reshape the North American political economy by direct use of executive authority.

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives ... itano.html


Anatomy of a scandal foretold

How was the Mexican election stolen? Let us count the ways

San Francisco Bay Guardian
July 07, 2006
JOHN ROSS

MEXICO CITY (July 7th) -- Mexican elections are stolen before, during, and after Election Day. Just look at what happened in the days leading up to the tightest presidential election in the nation's history this past July 2nd.
By law, the parties and their candidates close down their campaigns three days before Election Day. On Wednesday night June 28th, as the legal limit hove into sight, a team of crack investigators from the Attorney General's organized crime unit descended on the maximum security lock-up at La Palma in Mexico state where former Mexico City Finance Secretary Guillermo Ponce awaits trial on charges of misuse of public funds " much of which he appears to have left on Las Vegas crap tables.

During his nearly six years in office, outgoing president Vicente Fox has often used his attorney general's office against leftist front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to counter his growing popularity, including a failed effort to bar the former Mexico City mayor from the ballot and even imprison him.

Now, in a desperate last-minute electoral ploy by Fox's right-wing National Action or PAN party to boost the fortunes of its lagging candidate Felipe Calderon, the agents tried to pressure Ponce into testifying that AMLO and his PRD party had used city revenues to finance his presidential campaign but Ponce proved a stand-up guy and ultimately rebuffed the government men.

The imprisoned finance secretary's refusal to talk greatly disappointed both Televisa and TV Azteca, Mexico's two-headed television monopoly that has waged an unrelenting dirty war against Lopez Obrador for months and even years. Indeed, TV crews were stationed out in the La Palma parking lot to record Ponce's thwarted confession for primetime news and both networks had reserved time blocks on their evening broadcasting, forcing the anchors to scramble to fill in the gap.

That was Wednesday night. On Thursday June 29th, Lopez Obrador's people awoke to discover that the candidate's electronic page had been hacked and a phony message purportedly signed by AMLO posted there calling upon his supporters to hit the streets "if the results do not favor us." Although officials of Lopez Obrador's party, the PRD, immediately proved the letter to be a hoax, the pro-Calderon media broadcast the story for hours as if it were the gospel truth, eventually forcing the PRD and its allies to reaffirm that AMLO would abide by results released by the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), the nation's maximum electoral authority, even if the IFE's numbers did not favor the candidate.

The PRD pledge was a reiteration of a "pact of civility" that Televisa had browbeat PRD president Lionel Cota into signing in early June. "Hackergate," as the scandal quickly became known, was designed to prevent Lopez Obrador's supporters from protesting the fraud that the electoral authorities were already preparing.

That was Thursday. On Friday, June 30th, after more than five years of false starts, Fox's special prosecutor for political crimes placed former president Luis Echeverria under house arrest for his role in student massacres in 1968 and 1971. Not only was the long overdue arrest portrayed by big media as a feather in Fox's -- and therefore, Calderon's -- cap, but it also put the much-hated Echeverria, a pseudo-leftist with whom Calderon has often compared Lopez Obrador, back on the front pages. Since Echeverria is an emeritus member of the PRI, the bust killed two birds with one very opportunist stone.

That was Friday. On Saturday June 1st, two PRD poll watchers in conflictive Guerrero state were gunned down by unknowns, invoking the memory of hundreds of party supporters who were slaughtered in political violence after the 1988 presidential election was stolen from party founder Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, up until now Mexico's most conspicuous electoral fraud.

That was Saturday. On Sunday, July 2nd, Felipe Calderon and the PAN, aided and abetted by the connivance of the Federal Electoral Institute, Mexico's maximum electoral authority, stole the presidential election before the nation's eyes.

As mentioned above, Mexican elections are stolen before, during, and after the votes are cast. During the run-up to July 2nd, the IFE, under the direction of Calderon partisan Luis Carlos Ugalde, systematically tried to cripple Lopez Obrador's campaign. Venomous television spots that labeled AMLO "a danger" to Mexico were allowed to run, sometimes four to a single commercial break, for months on Televisa and TV Azteca despite an indignant outcry from Lopez Obrador's supporters. The IFE only pulled the plug on the hit pieces under court order.

In a similar display of crystal clear bias, Ugalde and the IFE winked at Vicente Fox's shameless, unprecedented, and unconstitutional campaigning for Calderon, and refused to intervene despite AMLO's pleas for the president to remove himself from the election.

One of the IFE's more notorious accomplishments in this year's presidential elections was to engineer the non-vote of Mexicans in the United States, an effort that resulted in the disenfranchisement of millions of "paisanos" living north of the Rio Bravo. Undocumented workers were denied absentee ballot applications at consulates and embassies and more than a million eligible voters were barred from casting a ballot because their voter registration cards were not up to date and the IFE refused to update them outside of Mexico. Untold numbers of undocumented workers who could not risk returning to Mexico for a minimum 25 days to renew their credential were denied the franchise the IFE was sworn to defend. The PRD insists that the majority of undocumented Mexicans in the U.S. would have cast a ballot for Lopez Obrador.

The left-center party has considerable strength in Los Angeles and Chicago, the two most important concentrations of Mexicans in the U.S. When thousands of legal Mexican residents from Los Angeles caravanned to Tijuana to cast a ballot for Lopez Obrador, they found the special polling places for citizens in transit had no ballots. The 750 ballots allocated to the special "casillas" had already been taken by members of the Mexican police and military.

In Mexico City, when voters in transit lined up at one special polling place, according to noted writer Elena Poniatowska, hundreds of nuns presumably voting for the rightwing Calderon displaced them and were given the last of the ballots.

Back in the bad old days when the long-ruling (71 years) Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) stole elections with impunity, most of the larceny took place in the polling stations --stolen or stuffed ballot boxes, multiple voting, altered vote counts -- but since national and international observers like the San Francisco-based Global Exchange became a regular feature of the electoral landscape here, such overt fraud has diminished and the cumulative number of anomalies recorded in 130,000 casillas July 2nd seemed insignificant when compared to the size of the victory Calderon was already claiming the morning after -- i.e. the John Kerry Syndrome, named in memory of the Democratic Party candidate's sudden capitulation in Ohio in 2004 for much the same reason.

Nonetheless, this "fraude de hormiga" (fraud of the ants) which steals five to 10 votes a ballot box, when combined with the disappearance of voters from precinct lists ("razarados" or the razored ones) can fabricate an electoral majority: The long-ruling PRI (which failed to win a single state July 2nd) was a master of this sort of "alquemia" (alchemy) during seven decades of defrauding Mexican voters.

During the build-up to July 2nd, independent reporters here uncovered what appeared to be IFE preparations for cybernetic fraud. One columnist at the left national daily La Jornada discovered parallel lists of "razarados" on the IFE electronic page; one of the lists contained multiples of the other. While the columnist, Julio Hernandez, made a phone call to the IFE to question this phenomenon, the list containing the multiples vanished from his computer screen.

Similarly, radio reporter Carmen Aristegui was able to access the list of all registered voters through one of Felipe Calderon's web pages, and the list had been crossed with one containing the personal data of all recipients of government social development program benefits. Former social development secretary (SEDESO) Josefina Vazquez Mota, is Calderon's right hand woman and the PAN candidate's brother-in-law Diego Zavala, a data processing tycoon, designed programs for both the IFE and the SEDESO. Utilizing voter registration rolls and lists of beneficiaries of government programs is considered an electoral crime here.

AMLO's people went into July 2nd fearing a repeat of 1988 when the "system" purportedly "collapsed" on election night and did not come back up for ten days. When results were finally announced, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas has been despoiled of victory and the PRI's Carlos Salinas was declared the winner.

Lopez Obrador's fears were not unwarranted.

When on July 2nd AMLO's voters turned out in record-breaking numbers, Interior Secretary officials urged major media not to release exit poll results that heralded a Lopez Obrador victory. Ugalde himself took to national television to declare the preliminary vote count too close to call, and Mexicans went to bed without knowing whom their next president might be.

Preliminary results culled from the casillas (PREP) that ran erratically all night and all day Monday showed Calderon with a 200,000 to 400,000-vote lead, activating suspicions that cybernetic flimflam was in the works. When the PREP was finally shut down Monday night, the right winger enjoyed a commanding lead and Televisa and TV Azteca proclaimed him a virtual winner. U.S newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune followed suit, and the White House was poised to celebrate a Calderon victory.

But there was one fly in the IFE's ointment: 42 million Mexicans had voted July 2nd, but only the votes of 39 million appeared in the PREP and Lopez Obrador demanded to know what had happened to the missing 3,000,000 voters. Then on a Tuesday morning news interview with Televisa, Luis Carlos Ugalde admitted that the missing votes had been abstracted from the PREP because of "inconsistencies". Indeed, 13,000 casillas -- 10% of the total -- had been removed from the preliminary count, apparently to create the illusion that Calderon had won the presidency.

Meanwhile all day Monday and into Tuesday, AMLO supporters throughout Mexico recorded thousands of instances of manipulation of the vote count. A ballot box in Mexico state registered 188 votes for Lopez Obrador but only 88 were recorded in the PREP. Another Mexico state ballot box was listed 20 times in the preliminary count. Whereas voters in states where the PAN rules the roost, cast more ballots for president than for senators and congressional representatives, voters in southern states where the PRD carried the day cast more ballots for congress than for the presidential candidates. Among the PRD states that purportedly followed this surreal pattern was Tabasco, the home state of two out of the three major party presidential candidates, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and the PRI's Roberto Madrazo.

On Wednesday morning, with the tension mounting to the breaking point and demonstrators already massing in the street, a final vote count began in Mexico's 300 electoral districts. Although the tabulation of the votes was programmed to finish Sunday, IFE officials pushed the recount ahead at breakneck speed. As the day progressed, PAN and PRI electoral officials, charging Lopez Obrador's people with trying to obstruct the process, repeatedly rejected PRD demands to open the ballot boxes and recount the votes inside one by one in instances where Lopez Obrador's tally sheets did not coincide with numbers in the PREP or were different from the sheets attached to the ballot box. When a recount was allowed such as in one Veracruz district, Lopez Obrador sometimes recouped as many as a thousand votes.

Surprisingly, by early afternoon, AMLO had accumulated a 2.6% lead over Calderon -- and his supporters were dancing in the streets of Mexico City. And then, inexplicably, for the next 24 hours, his numbers went into the tank, never to rise again -- at the same time that the right-winger's started to increase incrementally. By late evening, AMLO was reduced to single digit advantage and a little after 4 AM Thursday morning, Calderon inched ahead. It had taken 12 hours to count the last 10% of the votes and still there were districts that had not reported.

When Lopez Obrador addressed the press at 8:30, he condemned "the spectacle of the dance of numbers" and announced that the PRD and its political allies would impugn the election -- he had proof of anomalies in 40,000 polling places (a third of the total) and would present them to the "TRIFE", the supreme electoral tribunal with powers to annul whole districts and states, within the 72 hours dictated by the law.

Then, in his typically hesitating, Peter Falk-like way of saying things, AMLO called for the second election -- the one that takes place in the street -- beginning at 5 PM Saturday in the great Zocalo plaza at the political heart of this bruised nation.

Although Lopez Obrador's words were perhaps the culminating moment of this long strange journey, Mexico's two-headed TV monster chose to ignore them - Televisa was otherwise occupied with "entertainment" news, and soon after the screens filled up with game shows and telenovelas (soap operas.) Although it had not yet concluded, the telenovela of the vote count disappeared into the ether of morning television.

This chronicle of a fraud foretold is an excerpt from John Ross's forthcoming "Making Another World Possible:Zapatista Chronicles 2000-2006" to be published this October by Nation Books.

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries ... /4017.html
*************
Mexican lawmakers brawl in Congress before Felipe Calderon takes oath of office


Mexican lawmakers fight each other while others try to calm things down during a brawl in Congress shortly before Felipe Calderon was due to be sworn in Friday as the country's new president.


MEXICO CITY (AP) — Felipe Calderon took the oath of office as Mexico's president Friday in a lightning-fast ceremony accompanied by jeers and fistfights, then called for the nation to move past its divisive presidential race to focus on creating jobs and combatting drug violence and kidnappings.
ON DEADLINE: Did Mexico have a president this morning? | Video

Calderon then moved from the brawling, chaotic scene in Congress to make his first speech as president before a vast crowd in the more orderly National Auditorium.

Well-wishers chanted "He did it! He did it!" as riot police held back tens of thousands of protesters in the streets outside.

Calderon said he would slash government salaries, overhaul the justice and police departments, ensure health care for all children, encourage small business and reform the electoral system to shorten campaigns and reduce spending.

He also made an appeal to supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist who has refused to accept that Calderon's narrow victory in July was legitimate.

"To those who voted for others, I will not ignore your causes. I ask you to let me win your confidence," he said, but cautioned his rivals that he would govern with or without them: "I'm always ready to talk, but I won't wait for dialogue before going to work. The people are ready for action."

Calderon scored his first political triumph as president simply by being sworn in despite a morning-long brawl in the congressional chambers as leftist lawmakers tried to block him from attending his own inauguration.

Appearing suddenly through a back door and physically protected by sympathetic lawmakers, Calderon ignored the chaos around him, calmly raised his arm and swore to uphold the constitution.

His comments were almost inaudible over the noise.

Congress' leader ordered the national anthem played, momentarily stilling the catcalls and shouting, before Calderon made a quick exit and Congress adjourned. Foreign dignitaries — including former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Spanish Prince Felipe of Asturias — barely warmed their seats in a balcony overlooking the scene.

Immediately after the ceremony, outgoing President Vicente Fox took an Air Force helicopter to his ranch in central Mexico, where he plans to retire.

Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, claims he was robbed of the presidency and has declared himself Mexico's "legitimate president." In September, the Federal Electoral Tribunal declared Calderon the winner of the disputed race by less than a percentage point.

After the inauguration, Lopez Obrador led tens of thousands of supporters down Mexico City's elegant Reforma Avenue, the same boulevard they occupied for weeks this summer to protest Calderon's victory. Carrying banners that read "Lopez Obrador is president," the sea of people gathered outside the heavily guarded National Auditorium.

Afterward, Calderon was to attend a military ceremony in which army commanders swear allegiance to him, followed by a private dinner with dignitaries.

Lopez Obrador said he would never recognize Calderon as president.

"I won't respect a thief, and I will always call him that," he said.

After camping out in Congress for three days in an attempt to control the speaker's podium and prevent Calderon from taking office, leftist lawmakers seized the chamber's entrances Friday morning.

They draped a giant banner across the chamber reading "Mexico doesn't deserve a traitor to democracy as president," exchanged punches with ruling-party lawmakers and erected barricades of chairs as Calderon supporters chanted "Mexico wants peace."

"It's good action," quipped California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as he arrived.

Sen. Santiago Creel, who was Fox's former interior secretary, added: "I have never been in such an exciting session."

Anticipating the congressional chaos, Calderon held an unusual midnight ceremony in which he took control of the presidential residence from Fox.

Congress adjourned quickly after the oath of office and lawmakers filed out after their three-day slumber party complete with pillows, sleeping bags and pizza.

Bush looked down at the near-empty chambers littered with protest banners from a balcony. A Mexican reporter yelled from below in English: "Be careful while you're in Mexico!"

The elder Bush laughed and said "thank you."

Earlier, Bush praised Mexico's new president, saying: "The U.S. will work with him every way we can."

In Washington, the State Department voiced confidence Friday that Mexico will be able to deal with any problems it may have.

"We believe that these issues are best resolved and can be resolved by Mexican political leaders themselves," deputy spokesman Tom Casey said.


Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Posted 12/1/2006 9:26 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-12-01-mexico-
lawmakers_x.htm

Inauguration held in non-public ceremony?

Mexico's president-elect takes charge of presidential residence
Updated 12/1/2006 2:42 AM ET E-mail | Save | Print |




Congressional lawmakers sleep at Congress Hall, in Mexico City, just days before President-elect Felipe Calderon is to be named president. Leftist lawmakers have refused to leave the section of the congressional platform that they occupy, and ruling party lawmakers are holding firm to the part they have been able to secure.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — In an unusual midnight ceremony marking what he called the start of his inauguration, Felipe Calderon swore in part of his Cabinet and took charge of Mexico's presidential residence on Friday.
He pledged to take the formal oath of office later Friday morning at a Congress partially seized by lawmakers who are trying to block the inaugural ceremony.

In a live broadcast from the presidential residence of Los Pinos — where outgoing President Vicente Fox handed over his presidential sash as his term ended at midnight — Calderon called on Mexicans to leave behind the divisions that have dogged him and the country since the disputed July 2 elections.

"I have received the presidential offices from President Vicente Fox, the start of the process of taking possession of the presidency," Calderon said. "Later, I will appear before Congress to take the constitutional oath."

"I am not unaware of the complexity of the political times we are living through, nor of our differences," he said. "But I am convinced that we today we should put an end to our disagreements and from there, start a new stage whose only aim would be to place the interests of the nation above our differences."

In what a voice-over narration called "a symbolic ceremony," Fox handed the badge of office — a sash — to a military officer; Calderon must receive it later Friday when he takes the oath. In the past, incoming presidents have waited until the midmorning inauguration to make a speech.

Absent from the closed-door midnight ceremony were the angry protesters who have pledged to block the inauguration, but former leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador — who claims Calderon used fraud to win the July 2 elections — had already called on supporters to meet early Friday in Mexico City's main square.

While demonstrators were unlikely to reach Congress — its perimeter was ringed by police and presidential guards — conditions inside the building were probably much more worrisome for Calderon.

Lawmakers of Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party, the PRD, had battled ruling party legislators — often with wrestling moves and shoving — for control of parts of the podium on Tuesday, then staked out their territory by camping out with blankets and pillows for three days, in a bid to block the ceremony.
Calderon called on lawmakers to respect the constitutional process, and said "I invite you to build a better, different Mexico, a winning Mexico." He also pledged to "be the president of all Mexicans, without distinction, without regard to a person's political preferences."

He praised Fox for "honesty, loyalty and working for the good of Mexico." Fox, in what may be his last official act, heartily sang the national anthem.

Fox had previously said he would go to Congress with Calderon to hand over the presidential sash, but the PRD had objected to his presence — they accuse him of throwing the elections to Calderon — and now there appears to be little reason for Fox to attend.

The first opposition candidate ever to hold the presidency in Mexico, Fox marked his last evening in office with a visit to Mexico City's Basilica of Guadalupe, one of the most holy sites for Mexico's Roman Catholics, the same place he visited six years ago before taking office.

The standoff in Congress forced the conservative Calderon to take unusual steps to avoid clashes, conserve his dignity and keep visiting heads of state far from any trouble — adding up to an inauguration different from previous solemn, pomp-filled affairs.

Lawmakers of Calderon's conservative National Action Party control a narrow strip of the podium just wide enough to allow Calderon to walk in, face the floor of Congress and take the oath.

Because Calderon will be just a few feet from his bitter adversaries — who may unleash a storm of jeers — it appeared unlikely that visiting foreign dignitaries including former U.S. President George H. W. Bush and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would be invited to attend.

Instead, Calderon's office announced plans for a third ceremony — at the massive and heavily guarded National Auditorium on the other side of Mexico City. In a fourth event at an adjoining military parade ground, army commanders will swear allegiance to the elected head of state, symbolizing the military's tradition of staying out of politics since the 1930s.

On Thursday, Calderon named a handful of military and security veterans as his top law enforcement aides. In a departure from the hands-off approach of Fox, he said he would crack down on those who "challenge the authority of the state."

"We have to confront crime with vigorous action," said Calderon.

"Combating organized crime will be the priority," new Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said. "The scenario in which we live requires that the Mexican government respond with all its force to challenge those that think they can go on breaking the law without any consequence."

A wave of drug-related violence has claimed more than 2,000 lives this year, many in execution-style killings and decapitations, and at least nine people have died in Oaxaca in demonstrations calling for the resignation of Gov. Ulises Ruiz.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006 ... xico_x.htm

Yeah, then throw in the fact that the Mexicans spent nearly $1 Billion dollars for the campaign. The Mexican government isn't poor, they're crooks like our guys are!

Originally Posted by MyAmerica

Mexican President Calderon is touring the US prior to US Presidential Elections to meddle in our electorial process and domestic affairs.

CONSIDER THE DOUBLE STANDARD:
"When in Mexico the U.S. State Department reminds U.S. citizens to avoid participating in demonstrations and other activities that might be deemed political by Mexican authorities. The Mexican Constitution prohibits political activities by foreigners, and such actions may result in detention and/or deportation." U.S. State Department

And yet President Calderon feels that it is perfectly okay for Illegal Alien Mexicans to come into our country on the May Day marches and demonstrate against us alongside of their Socialist and Marxist supporters:

http://grabbavid.com/Communists+march+w ... Immigrants

And here is an article from Newsmax that tells it all:

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/art ... 5335.shtml

Make no mistake: President Calderon has an agenda and it is not about the good of the United States.

Hildebrando
In the presidential candidate debate of June 6, 2006, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, presidential candidate for the PRD, accused Felipe Calderón of granting contracts to a software company named Hildebrando,[11] which Calderón's brother-in-law, Diego Zavala, founded and in which he has minority stock, during Calderón's eight-month tenure as Secretary of Energy. López Obrador also accused the company of tax evasion. Investigations are still being conducted, without any outcome yet.[12]

[edit] Post-election controversy

Felipe Calderón and Stephen Harper, prime minister of Canada.Main article: Mexican general election 2006 controversies
On July 2, 2006, the day of the election, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) announced that the race was too close to call and chose not to make public a large and well-designed exit poll. However, as the preliminary results of the unofficial PREP database made clear the next morning, Felipe Calderón had a small lead of 1.04%.[13]

The IFE called the candidates to abstain from pronouncing themselves as winner, president-elect, or president. Both candidates disobeyed this call. Just after López Obrador declared that he had won the election, Calderón proclaimed victory as well, pointing to the initial figures released by the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE).[14]

On July 6, 2006, the Federal Electoral Institute announced the official vote count in the 2006 presidential election, resulting in a narrow margin of 0.58% for Calderón over his closest contender, PRD candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador. However, López Obrador and his coalition alleged irregularities in a large number of polling stations and demanded a national recount. Ultimately, the Federal Electoral Tribunal, in a unanimous vote, declared such recount to be groundless and unfeasible and ordered a recount of about 9.07% of the 130,477 polling stations.[15]

On September 5, 2006, Calderón was, after the change of the votes of two of the magistrates,[16] unanimously declared president-elect by the tribunal with a lead of 233,831 votes, or 0.56%, over López Obrador. The electoral court concluded that there were minor irregularities before and during the election, but these were not enough to invalidate the election. The ruling was mandatory, final, and could not be appealed.[17]

Inauguration
The PRD opposition had threatened to not allow Calderón to take the oath of office and be inaugurated as president. In a surprising move, the PAN took control of Congress's main floor three days before the inauguration was scheduled. This led to days of fist fighting on the congressional floor and uncertainty as to what would happen and whether Calderón would assume the presidency. The Mexican Constitution states that the President must be inaugurated by taking the oath of office before Congress in the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies.

On November 30, at ten minutes to midnight, in an unprecedented move,[18] outgoing President Vicente Fox Quesada and still President-Elect Felipe Calderón Hinojosa stood side by side on national television as Fox turned over the presidential band to a cadet, who handed it to Calderón. Afterwards, Fox read a short speech indicating that he had concluded his mandate by receiving the flag "that had accompanied him during the last six years which he had devoted himself completely to the service of Mexico and had the utmost honor of being the president of the republic".[19] Then, Calderón read a speech to the people of Mexico, indicating that he would attend to the inauguration ceremony at the Chamber of Deputies. He made a call to unity using words from his presidential campaign. Though it was debated at the time whether the action had been constitutional, it gave Calderón the right of protection by the Presidential Guard, which proved crucial on the next day.

On December 1, despite the PRD's plans to prevent Calderón from taking office, the inauguration in front of Congress was able to proceed. Hours before Calderón's arrival, lawmakers from the PRD and PAN parties began a brawl[20], where several representatives threw punches and pushed, while others shouted at each other. PRD representatives shouted "Fuera Fox" ("out with [President] Fox") and blew whistles, while PAN representatives responded back with "Mexico, Mexico." Minutes before Calderón and Fox walked into Congress, the president of the Chamber of Deputies announced legal quorum, thus enabling Calderón to legally take the oath of office. At 9:45 a.m. CST, all Mexican media cut to the official national broadcast, where commentators discussed the situation, and showed scenes inside the Palace of the Chamber of Deputies, Palacio de San Lázaro. At 9:50 a.m. CST, Calderón entered the chamber through a protected entrance in the back of the palace and approached the podium, where he took the oath as required by the Constitution.[21] After the anthem, opposition continued to yell "Felipe will fall." PAN representatives shouted back, "SÃ* se pudo" (It was possible).[22][23] Calderón stood in Congress for less than five minutes and walked out. At 10:00 a.m. CST, the official broadcast ended, and most other stations resumed their programming.

As the inaugural ceremony was transpiring in Congress, López Obrador led a rally of supporters in the Zócalo. Some estimates place attendance at over 100,000 people. Several supporters marched down Reforma Avenue toward the Auditorio Nacional, where Calderón would address an audience of supporters after his inauguration.[24][25] To avoid a confrontation, the federal police placed a metallic wall across the avenue in order to stop the rally, which was succesful.

[edit] Immigration reform
Felipe Calderón has made immigration reform one of his main priorities.

Before meeting with President Bush in March 2007, Calderón openly expressed his disapproval of building a wall between the two nations.[36] After the U.S. Senate rejected the Comprehensive immigration bill, President Calderon called the decision a "grave error".

[quote][edit] Approval ratings
Demonstrators have met Calderón during his tours of Europe and Central America, protesting alleged human rights abuses in the 2006 Oaxaca protests and supposed electoral fraud in the controversial Presidential Election of 2006.[64][65][66][67][/quote]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felipe_Calder%C3%B3n