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 Editorials | At Issue | August 2006 
Street Favorite Stage for Obrador
 Lorraine Orlandi - Reuters
| | Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, presidential candidate for the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), holds a baby along Madero street in downtown Mexico City. (Tomas Bravo/Reuters) |
Mexican leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador feels right at home camping among throngs of fans in the shadow of the National Palace, wrapped in adoration from the poor and his own indignation.
A month after losing a presidential election he says was stolen from him, Lopez Obrador has brought his quest for power back to the streets, the stage he seems to love best, using a strategy of civil resistance that has served him well before.
Thousands of his backers have for days occupied the main boulevard through Mexico City's commercial district and into its historic heart, snarling traffic across large swathes of the capital and shuttering many businesses.
He strides among them daily, smiling as he is mobbed and jostled and painting himself as a savior of democracy.
"We must safeguard democracy. We cannot live in a country where a corrupt minority decides who governs," he told frenzied backers this week.
They screamed back, "You are not alone!"
While Lopez Obrador commands deep loyalty from followers, critics say the protests show him at his worst, a rabble rouser who would be a populist, divisive president rather than a statesman able to unite the country and cut deals with his opponents.
The former Mexico City mayor and Indian rights activist says massive fraud gave victory to conservative ruling party contender Felipe Calderon in the July 2 election. He is demanding that Mexico's electoral court order a full recount.
His fiery rhetoric springs from a heartfelt belief that his mission is to lead Mexico, says George Grayson at Virginia's College of William and Mary, author of a book on the leftist.
"He is a messiah and the flock has gathered around him," Grayson said. "Lopez Obrador doesn't just represent the masses, he incarnates their struggle. He feels their pain."
At a rally on Sunday, Lopez Obrador surprised supporters from around the country, calling on them to stay and camp out with him in the vast Zocalo square and on Reforma boulevard.
A huge network of tents, tarps, gas stoves and sound systems sprouted overnight, less a protest than a block party in spots, with mariachi bands and souvenir vendors.
Critics say the elaborate production came at taxpayers' expense, funded by the capital city government his party controls.
SHOW OF FORCE
Lopez Obrador's aides deny public funding was involved and say protesters receive no stipends, as some have charged.
His Party of the Democratic Revolution and other political and civic groups handled the logistics, they say. Protesters say they stayed because they believe in Lopez Obrador.
"This comes from a belief in all the hope he offered, for social justice, for aid to the elderly," said Jose Luis Barbosa, a party leader from Guanajuato state. "Andres personifies this project ... it helps us endure."
Rivals accuse Lopez Obrador, 52, of threatening rather than protecting a fragile democracy. Even believers like Barbosa admit his tactics are alienating some party faithful.
If history is a lesson, the protests could raise Lopez Obrador's political capital whether he takes office or not.
In 1994, he made his name in politics with dramatic marches over alleged fraud when he lost a governor's race in Tabasco state, walking 560 miles to Mexico City.
Last year, he galvanized a public sense of moral outrage and drew hundreds of thousands of protesters to the Zocalo, forcing President Vicente Fox to drop minor criminal charges against him that could have eliminated him from the presidential race.
The flap helped solidify Lopez Obrador's political base. "You are not alone" was his backers' mantra then, as now. |
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