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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | August 2006 
Government Wants Protest Halted
 Ioan Grillo - Associated Press
| | Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador waves to supporters on Tuesday August 1, 2006. Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador toured the protest camps his supporters have set up in Mexico City's center on Tuesday, urging them to ignore public criticism as he presses for a recount in a presidential election he says he rightfully won. (AP/Eduardo Verdugo) |
Mexico City — The national government urged Mexico City officials Wednesday to clear the streets of protest camps supporting leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's battle to be declared winner of last month's disputed presidential election.
The camps put up Sunday have blocked the main avenues in the capital's financial and cultural heart, snarling traffic, hurting business and causing Mexico's stock market and currency to falter.
President Vicente Fox's administration has said it will not intervene with federal forces unless the city government requests help. That is unlikely since the local government is controlled by Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party.
At a morning news conference, Fox spokesman Ruben Aguilar called on city officials to find a legal and peaceful way to end the street protests. He said the demonstrations were costing the capital commerce and keeping people from their jobs.
"The city of Mexico is for everyone," Aguilar said, reading a statement from Fox's office. "Democracy should be defended by respecting it."
Mexican stocks and the peso recovered slightly Wednesday after two days of declines that analysts blamed in part on the street blockades.
Fox has taken a hands-off approach to the election dispute to avoid inflaming tensions over the tight July 2 election. The candidate of Fox's conservative party, Felipe Calderon, ended up with a 240,000-vote lead, or less than 0.6 percent of an official count.
Lopez Obrador argues the election was marred by fraud and has asked the country's top electoral court to order a recount that he says will prove he was the race's true winner.
The Federal Electoral Tribunal has until Sept. 6 to declare a president-elect or annul the elections.
Lopez Obrador asked his supporters Sunday to erect the protest camps, which have further divided an already polarized megapolis of 20 million people. He has threatened to launch other acts of "civil disobedience," but promises any demonstrations will be peaceful.
Calderon, who considers a vote-by-vote recount both unnecessary and illegal, accuses his rival of having "kidnapped" the capital.
"They want to win in the streets something they weren't able to win at the voting booth," Calderon told reporters Tuesday.
A more combative atmosphere has spread through the motley collection of makeshift road blocks and tents of plastic sheeting. Some protesters yelled obscenities and threats and even lobbed bottles at reporters.
Lopez Obrador urged his supporters on Tuesday to fortify their camps, but he also said his supporters should remain peaceful.
"We have to act with prudence even though our blood is boiling," he said. "If we are right, we have no reason to be hostile to the media."
Calderón Criticizes Reforma Blockade
El Universal
National Action Party (PAN) presidential candidate Felipe Calderón delivered his first comments Tuesday on his rival´s shutdown of Mexico City´s tree-lined boulevard Paseo de la Reforma, and they were predictably blistering.
"Those who try to hold the city hostage are demanding in return for its liberation a price that they well know we citizens have no reason to pay," he told a gathering of textile industry executives in Mexico City Tuesday. "It´s okay if others don´t want to work, but we do want to work and they must let us work."
In a bold move to press his demand for a recount of the July 2 vote, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who trails Calderón by 244,000 votes in the still-uncertified count, asked his supporters to set up information tents along Reforma and occupy the street 24 hours a day. The resulting traffic woes and other inconveniences generated negative reactions from much of the Mexico City population Monday and Tuesday.
Also Tuesday, Interior Secretary Carlos María Abascal called on Mexico City Mayor Alejandro Encinas to "guarantee public order and the liberty of all citizens" as he vehemently criticized the "illegal blockade" established in the capital.
Abascal said he had spoken with Encinas by telephone and would wait to see what kind of response his comments provoked.
"Public authorities have the responsibility of governing for the entire citizenry," Abascal said, while also insisting that law and order was secure across the nation. |
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