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 Editorials | August 2006 
Lopez Obrador's Last Stand
 SFGate.com
August 25, 2006
| | Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) stands with a girl during a rally in Mexico's city Zocalo square. (Reuters/Tomas Bravo) |
As the head of a government that purports to support democracy around the world (never mind that $2-billion-a-year hand-out to Egypt's longtime, democracy-crushing dictator-president, Hosni Mubarak), George W. Bush has completely ignored democracy's struggle for survival right next door, in Mexico. But many Mexicans have noticed Washington's deafening silence.
As a result, now that it's down-to-the-wire time there (Mexico's government must confirm who the next president will be by September 6), in recent days, leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (or "AMLO") has reached out overseas in an impassioned appeal for support for his reform-minded, pro-democracy movement.
According to Mexico's federal electoral institute (IFE), which oversees elections (and is effectively controlled by the National Action Party (PAN) of incumbent President Vicente Fox), López Obrador lost the July 2 presidential election, and Fox's PAN successor, conservative Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, "won." IFE's partial recount of only nine percent of the vote showed that Calderón bested López Obrador by a razor-thin, 0.58 percent margin, or roughly 243,000 votes out of 41 million cast. AMLO and his supporters have demanded a total recount of all of the vote and have argued that the Fox-Calderón-PAN machine committed fraud to steal the election.
In the New York Times's op-ed pages, López Obrador recently wrote: "The largest demonstrations in our history are daily proof that millions of Mexicans want a full accounting of last month's presidential election....[O]ur aim is to strengthen, not damage, Mexico's institutions, to force them to adopt greater transparency....We need the goodwill and support of those in the international community with a personal, philosophical or commercial interest in Mexico to encourage it to do the right thing and allow a full recount that will show, once and for all, that democracy is alive and well in this republic."
Yesterday, in an interview with France's Le Monde that was widely quoted in Mexican and Latin-American media, AMLO told a reporter who visited him in the tent-city digs where he has been lodging with hundreds of thousands of supporters in Mexico City's vast Zócalo plaza: "If the [PAN's electoral] fraud is consummated, I will continue the struggle until the republic is restored. We've won, but it is difficult to carry forward [our victory] in the face of a mafia, a powerful group that acts without any moral scruple."
In his tent in the rain-soaked plaza, outfitted with with only a cot, a little table, two chairs and a Mexican flag, López Obrador told Le Monde's correspondent: "[W]e've been the victims of a campaign [orchestrated by] the apparatus of the state, with the direct participation of the president...to destroy us politically, because we represent an alternative....They decided to prevent me by any means from becoming elected."
Despite the tension surrounding the transition to a presumed, new Calderón administration, President Fox intends to go ahead and deliver his annual - and last - State of the Union speech on September 1. Two weeks later, he'll take part in Independence Day festivities, which will include his reenactment of the famous grito (shout for freedom) that launched Mexico's independence movement in 1810. That popular ceremony is supposed to take place on a balcony of the National Palace overlooking the Zócalo, which will probably still be packed with AMLO's hordes of supporters in their sprawling encampment.
Would the Fox government dare to use force to break up the demonstration before the big national holiday? So far, that's not a thought most Mexicans seem to want to consider. However, López Obrador told Le Monde that, under the terms Mexico's constitution, he has called for a "national democratic convention" to take place in the plaza on September 16, a day after Independence Day. Bringing together citizen delegates from all around the country, it "will allow [them] to name a legitimate president and [set up] the organization of [a] popular resistance" movement, López Obrador said. As a result, he added, Mexicans could wake up on September 17 to find that they have two prospective, new presidents.
Fox's spokesman dismissed López Obrador's statements. Looking ahead to the day when Calderón becomes president, he assured the media that there will be no "outbreak of social unrest, not even remotely." He acknowledged that there "could be protests" but added: "[W]e hope they'll take place within the context of the constitution and the law." He rejected as "fantastic and folkloric" AMLO's assertions that he is the legitimate winner of the July 2 election and, thus, Mexico's real president-elect. (EFE/Cadena Global.com)
Fox's spokesman told reporters that if AMLO could make such pronouncements, "well then, all of you could also declare yourselves presidents, too, but it wouldn't mean anything." (El Universal, Mexico)
Battle of the Ballot: Mexican Election’s Legitimacy in Question
Alex Ratner - indymedia.org
August 23, 2006
A month since the July 2 Presidential election produced a virtual tie, Mexico is in full crisis. By a mere 0.58% of the total vote, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) declared Felipe Calderón, the candidate of the ruling conservative party (PAN), to be president-elect. The center-left PRD candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO)– both in the courts and in the streets–has vigorously challenged the validity of the official count, and claims the whole electoral process was illegitimately weighted towards Calderón’s win. Millions of AMLO’s supporters took to the streets, and despite weeks of rain, hundreds of thousands are permanently occupying the core of Mexico City in a nonviolent campaign to press for a full recount.
On August 5, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal denied the PRD’s appeal for a vote-by-vote recount, and instead opted for what some senators called “the worst of all possible outcomes”: by the Tribunal’s decree, 9% of the ballots will be recounted, primarily from PAN-governed states. By ordering a recount the Tribunal has conceded the election was corrupt; however, since only a fraction of the ballots will be recounted, the legitimacy of the “victor” will be permanently tainted. Meanwhile, AMLO declared he will continue his tactics of “peaceful civil resistance” to force a full recount or, as a last resort, a nullification of the election.
Outside the Tribunal’s doors, an indignant crowd ominously shouted: “If there is no solution, there will be revolution!” Revolution or not, this election’s North/South split is evidence of two Mexicos: a wealthier north more allied with the United States and neoliberal economic development, and a poorer south with more in common with the burgeoning popular movements now spreading across Latin America. The clash of these competing visions seems bound to spark a genuine social upheaval in Mexico, one which not even AMLO or the PRD may be capable of controlling. |
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