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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | September 2006 
Fox to Deliver 'Grito' in Dolores Hidalgo
 Lisa J. Adams - Associated Press
| | Stairway ceiling with portrait of angry Miguel Hidalgo by Jose Clemente Orozco. Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. |
President Vicente Fox backed down from a confrontation with thousands of leftist sympathizers of Manuel Lopez Obrador, moving Friday's annual Independence Day celebration away from Mexico City's main square to avoid protesters.
The decision prompted Lopez Obrador to declare victory in his battle against July 2 elections he claims were stolen from him by fraud. His supporters plan to throw their own Independence Day party in Mexico City's Zocalo square, which they have occupied for weeks.
"We are very happy because the traitor to democracy will not be here tomorrow," the former Mexico City mayor told cheering sympathizers Thursday.
Lopez Obrador claims Fox rigged the presidential vote in favor of conservative Felipe Calderon and had called on his supporters to turn their backs when Fox made the annual salute of "Viva Mexico!"
Fox decided to move the ceremony to the central town of Dolores Hidalgo, where Roman Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo made the first call for independence from Spain in 1810.
The town, 170 miles northwest of Mexico City, is in Fox's home state of Guanajuato, a bastion of support for his conservative National Action Party. The last president to hold Independence Day celebrations there was Carlos Salinas in 1994.
Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal announced the change of venue shortly after the Senate voted unanimously to recommend that Fox not travel to the Zocalo.
The Fox administration has a history of backing down from confrontations.
On Sept. 1, lawmakers from Lopez Obrador's party took over the podium in Congress, preventing the president from delivering his last state-of-the-nation address there. Fox made his speech on television later.
Last year, his administration threw out criminal charges against Lopez Obrador after the leftist led mass marches. And in 2002, Fox abandoned plans to build a new airport after machete-wielding farmers kidnapped a group of policemen and threatened to kill them.
But some analysts say Fox's decision to change the Independence Day venue was prudent. Some Mexicans had feared clashes if government supporters showed up for celebrations.
Supporters of Lopez Obrador have been camped out in the Zocalo for weeks. They have refused to recognize Calderon's slim victory over Lopez Obrador, and vowed do everything to keep the ruling party from holding power.
Calderon, of National Action, takes office Dec. 1.
Abascal said this year's Zocalo celebration will be led by Mexico City Mayor Alejandro Encinas, of Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party.
Lopez Obrador called on his sympathizers to support Encinas during the celebration and invited the mayor to share the stage with veteran leftist activist Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, whose son disappeared while in police custody in 1975.
The protesters gave Fox's government one concession: They agreed to remove their protest camps from the Zocalo and the upscale Reforma avenue, allowing a military parade to follow its traditional route on Saturday.
Immediately following the parade, however, they will retake the plaza to stage a "National Democratic Convention" in which they could "elect" Lopez Obrador as president of a parallel government to challenge Caldron's administration.
Traditionally, tens of thousands of Mexicans kick off their Independence Day celebrations with a visit to the Zocalo — an enormous plaza that houses the National Palace, City Hall, the metropolitan cathedral, and a football field-sized Mexican flag.
Lights fashioned in the shape of the nation's independence heroes are draped over the imposing cement colonial building facades, and the square is filled with people wielding miniature green-white-and-red Mexican flags, enormous straw sombreros, confetti and aerosol cans of foam. |
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