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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | September 2006 
Violent Plot made Mexico Change "Grito" Plan: Government
 Chris Aspin - Reuters
| | A protester holds a banner with a portrait of Mexican president Vicente Fox during a demonstration outside the congress building in Mexico City, earlier this month. (Reuters/Tomas Bravo) |
Leftists plotting violent clashes made President Vicente Fox abandon plans to lead Mexico's main independence day ceremony in the capital on Friday, his spokesman said.
Leftists are angry at what they say was fraud in the July 2 presidential vote and plan to fill the capital's huge Zocalo square for the traditional ceremony on Friday night.
The election was narrowly won by the ruling party's Felipe Calderon and followers of the losing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who had occupied the square for six weeks in protest, wanted to give Fox a rowdy reception in the Zocalo.
Fox backed out on Thursday and will now give the highly charged cry of independence, known as "el grito," in the central town of Dolores Hidalgo.
Fox spokesman Ruben Aguilar said intelligence services found out that some radical groups in the leftist alliance that backs Lopez Obrador planned to cause chaos that could been fatal.
"The only factor that was taken into account ... was to defend the lives of people. Under no circumstances can lives be put at risk," Aguilar told reporters. "It would have been a tragedy for this country."
It is the second time Fox has backed down to the left. Lawmakers who support Lopez Obrador seized the podium of Congress and forced Fox to abandon his state of the nation speech on September 1. He gave the address later on television.
Aguilar did not say exactly what type of violence was planned at the ceremony, which traditionally takes place on the eve of independence day and ends with the president shouting "Viva Mexico" in front of a flag-waving crowd.
Organizers had feared clashes between leftists and the presidential guard. Mexico City's mayor Alejandro Encinas, an ally of Lopez Obrador, will now lead the independence day ceremony in the capital.
Fox's decision to switch venue was the latest move to defuse tensions in the long-running dispute over an election result that gave Calderon victory by 234,000 votes out of 41 million.
Supporters of Lopez Obrador wound down their protests on Friday, taking down tents they had erected in the Zocalo and along the main Reforma boulevard, which had crippled the city center and caused traffic chaos.
Traffic began flowing along Reforma for the first since the end of July.
Dolores Hidalgo is where the national hero Miguel Hidalgo started a movement in 1810 that led to Mexico's independence from Spain. Some past presidents have also occasionally given "el grito" in the town, usually for the sake of a change from Mexico City. |
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