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 Editorials | At Issue | August 2006 
Planned Protests to Expand
 Kelly Arthur Garrett/The Herald Mexico
| | People listen to Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador outside of the Federal Electoral Tribunal, TRIFE, in Mexico City, Mexico, on Monday, Aug. 7, 2006. (AP/Eduardo Verdugo) |
Acknowledging that their actions are inconveniencing an increasing number of people, Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) leaders on Tuesday said they will expand their civil resistance campaign across the nation.
"We´ve concentrated for the most part on the capital, but in this new stage we´re going to take action in a number of states," Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, the PRD secretary general in charge of the civil resistance told EL UNIVERSAL in an interview. "They will be coordinated national actions all with the same objective - a recount of all the votes."
Acosta said the party will target federal government facilities in various states, but stressed that no building will be "taken."
"We´re not going to go into any public buildings, just block them and stage sit-ins," Acosta said. "But there will be a lot more actions, so anybody who thinks that this is limited to the Federal District is in for a surprise."
The center-left PRD and its presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador have demanded a full recount of the presidential ballots since shortly after the July vote that gave conservative rival Felipe Calderón a narrow 0.58 percent lead in the still-uncertified count. The party has dismissed the recount of about 9 percent of the vote set to begin Wednesday morning as insufficient, and is sending representatives to witness the partial recount "under protest."
López Obrador rallied his supporters to three major demonstrations in the capital´s central square during July to protest alleged vote fraud and to demand a full recount they say will show that their candidate won the presidency.
More recently, however, determined citizens have permanently occupied major downtown streets, slowing traffic and grating nerves. Facing a backlash, PRD spokespersons have continued to insist that extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary measures.
"The struggle for democracy is going to cause some inconvenience," López Obrador´s campaign coordinator Jesús Ortega said at a news conference Tuesday. "The majority of the people understand that."
The PRD said the new civil resistance actions planned for other regions of the country will include some new tactics. Mexico City residents and visitors got a preview Tuesday of one new tactic when pro-recount activists temporarily occupied four highway toll stations at city entrances. Instead of blocking the entrances, the protesters waved cars through without paying.
The action triggered negative television coverage, prompting Acosta to quip, "First they get mad at us for blocking Paseo de la Reforma, and now that we unblock the toll booths they still get mad."
Many PRD spokespersons have seemed to struggle at times to contain their displeasure at what they see as unduly negative media coverage of their protests and legal challenges of the electoral process.
Television news especially, they say privately, portrays López Obrador supporters as troublemakers while Calderón gets treated as though he were the president-elect.
Among the street occupiers and other pro-López Obrador supporters, anger at much of the media runs a close third behind Calderón´s National Action Party and the Federal Electoral Institute that ran the election. Though the protesters have exhibited mostly exemplary behavior, incidents of insults aimed at reporters are not uncommon in the areas occupied by recount supporters.
"I will offer any journalist who has been inconvenienced our most sincere apologies," Ortega said.
PRD-Led 'Mega Sit-In' Features Festive Ambience
El Universal
Watching "Scarface." Listening to punk rock. Playing soccer on synthetic grass. Dancing on wooden crates.
The front lines of a push to overturn a presidential election seem more block party than revolution.
As supporters of left-leaning Andrés Manuel López Obrador take to the streets - and stay there - it is clear there is not much angst or suffering among them, other than aches from sleeping on pallets or cobblestones.
People have set up camp for the long term in the middle of the city, saying they´ll protest in shifts and take time off from their families or their jobs to force a recount of the July 2 race, which López Obrador lost to Felipe Calderón, according to unverified results.
López Obrador has claimed victory, accused election officials of stealing it by fraud and asked supporters to carry out an array of civil disobedience measures.
"I am headed to my new home," said Carmen Quintano Arcón, 44, a housewife among the newest arrivals in the early-morning hours Wednesday. "Whatever it takes."
CALL FOR RESOLUTION
Outgoing President Vicente Fox called on the city government to find a way to peacefully end the protest, which has gridlocked traffic and heightened tension.
Even some of López Obrador´s highest profile supporters say he´s gone too far.
The sit-in includes thousands of people, thinly distributed along four miles of a major city thoroughfare and thickening the closer it gets to the densely packed central square called the Zócalo.
The plaza, given its maze of pallets, nylon tents, candles, gas- powered stoves and fencing, would seem a fire marshals´ nightmare. López Obrador´s campaign staff contends they´ve got rules on when and how to use fire and there is no danger.
His living quarters separated by guards and metal fences, López Obrador has vowed to live in the Zócalo until a recount is ordered.
He awakens at dawn and makes daily visits to various encampments, where he shakes hands, hugs babies and people hang on his every word.
NO FORCE NECESSARY
Perhaps contributing to the laid-back atmosphere, his followers took over prime real estate not by force, but by concession.
No one got in their way. There were no soldiers, no riot police, and no clouds of tear gas.
In turn, the demonstrators threw no Molotov cocktails, didn´t loot any stores nor burn any tires.
"It was easy to take the city, very easy," said commentator Guadalupe Loeza, who has long been a López Obrador supporter.
She noted that demonstrators have been able to enjoy free food and been relaxed enough to sit around playing video games.
Even if there is no shortage of Mexicans who despise what López Obrador´s supporters are doing, the effort is underwritten by the city government, which is controlled by his Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).
It permits supporters to block traffic, steal electricity from power lines and erect miles of disaster- relief style tents. Police grin; city tanker trucks empty dozens of portable toilets; the mayor and mayor-elect march with López Obrador.
At times, football-field length stretches of the Paseo de La Reforma avenue are all but abandoned, with no one even sitting under canopy tents that serve as giant place holders.
"Right now, this is short term," said Manuel Carrazco, 45, a teacher. "If they do not do a recount, we will have to move to the other means of resistance," he said last week, such as blockading highways or surrounding the airport.
VARIED SUPPORT
A walk through López Obrador´s various tent cities offers a glimpse at the array of his supporters, much like a stroll through different ethnic communities in New York City.
There were the ladies in their mid-50s who sat around a table and looked at videos of themselves in López Obrador´s last march. Wearing fake hair braids and carrying wooden rifles, the women had dressed in clothing styled from the 1910 Mexican Revolution.
Then came an intricate mock graveyard fashioned from dirt, died wood shavings and 18 wooden crosses - each labeled with the names of Fox, Calderón and other despised political players.
"This sends a message that we will not let democracy die," said Carlos Daniel Torres, 45, a former city councilman who helped set up the display.
A few blocks away, a wiry singer literally screamed into a microphone as his group cranked out everything from hard-core punk rock to old-fashioned Rolling Stones.
Later came a miniature soccer field, complete with a ratty, green carpet and flanked by about a dozen miniature carnival rides for children.
Special education teacher Karina Figueroa, 30, stomped her heels and swirled her dress as she stood atop a wooden crate and was surrounded by more than a dozen acoustic guitarists.
"Dancing for democracy," she later said after she stepped down. "We are tired of being governed by people who impose their authority."
In a tent turned theater, Tony Montana, Al Pacino´s hot-tempered character in the 1983 classic, "Scarface," squared off with U.S. immigration officers as he spoke of the horrors of Cuba.
"There´s nothing you can do to me that Castro hasn´t already done," he says, his words translated in Spanish subtitles.
No one made a peep. |
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