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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | September 2006 
Mexico's Zocalo Square Bustles as Crisis Eases
 Alistair Bell - Reuters
| | Mexican leftists, who say the July 2 election was stolen, declared their candidate their "legitimate president" on Saturday, a symbolic move reducing the risk of street protests to make the country ungovernable. (Tomas Bravo/Reuters) |
Witness to a history of conquest, revolution and sacrifice, Mexico City's Zocalo square returned to bustling normality on Sunday after leftists claiming vote fraud ended seven weeks of sit-in protests.
Peanut sellers did a roaring trade and families on bikes sped across the giant concourse, occupied until Saturday by tents housing supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist who lost July's presidential vote by an inch.
The end of the sit-in eased a political feud that has gripped the country since the election, which conservative Felipe Calderon won by only 234,000 votes out of 41 million cast.
A court rejected allegations of vote rigging and named Calderon president-elect on September 5, deflating leftist protests.
Lopez Obrador supporters from out of town took photographs in the Zocalo on Sunday before heading home.
Often the scene of Mexico's national dramas, the square was the center of the Aztec empire, home to Spanish conquistador rulers and is now the heart of modern Mexico.
"We've seen everything here, all human life," said Antonio Escudero, a 25-year veteran street sweeper in the Zocalo.
The Zocalo hosts concerts and national celebrations and a huge flagpole in its center is a famed meeting place. A cantina nearby boasts of a hole made by a bullet that revolutionary Pancho Villa fired.
The National Palace seat of government, adorned by Diego Rivera murals, shares the square with the capital's cathedral and city hall. Less than a block away is a ruined Aztec temple that once ran with blood from captives sacrificed to the gods.
Locals were glad to have their square back.
"Even the sky seems clearer today. I thank God we can enjoy this place again," said priest Enrique Fernandez at the cathedral.
Families lined up to have babies baptized and outside semi-naked performers put on ankle bracelets made of shells for Aztec dances.
Lopez Obrador held almost nightly speeches in the Zocalo for weeks, railing against President Vicente Fox and the courts for their part in what he says was election fraud.
His supporters forced Fox to abandon plans to give the traditional "grito" cry of independence on Friday night in the square. The city's leftist mayor held the ceremony instead.
In their last act in the Zocalo, tens of thousands of followers declared Lopez Obrador "legitimate president" at a rally on Saturday.
It was a symbolic move.
"I support Lopez Obrador but there is no point in this," said Yanet Gonzalez, 17. "Nothing will change." |
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