 |
|
|
 Editorials | At Issue | October 2006 
Mexican Left Pushes Forward Despite New Administration
 Diego Cevallos - IPS/GIN
| | Among the Left’s goals are to curb free trade and privatization, and encourage the fight against poverty. It also wants to reform the constitution and the country’s electoral institutions, which it sees as serving the interests of the economic elites. |
Mexico’s Left plans to re-lay the foundations of the country with a symbolic “government” of social activism chosen by its followers, and a party coalition acting through the country’s institutions.
The challenge it faces is to persuade the Mexican people, among whom approval of the Left is declining, to support its goals and strategies, observers say.
The opposition movement, which is easily “big enough to force concessions from the regime,” will catalyze “grievances of all varieties” and make it difficult for the government of the conservative president-elect, Felipe Calderon, to consolidate its power, Manuel Camacho, one of the leaders of the Left, told IPS.
At an assembly dubbed the National Democratic Convention, which according to its organizers drew a million people on Sept. 15 in the capital, the Left designated former Mexico City mayor Andres Lopez Obrador as the country’s “legitimate president.” His supporters believe the former candidate lost the July 2 elections because of fraud.
The convention, born of a proposal set forth by Mr. Obrador on Aug. 13, met for nearly four hours on Sept. 15 and will reconvene on March 21. Delegates from every Mexican state took part, some of whom had been elected in party assemblies, although anyone can register to participate.
Commissions will be set up to debate issues like national policy, civil resistance and proposals to rewrite the constitution. Despite predictions from the ruling National Action Party (PAN), the assembly was held without incident.
So today, Mexico has an incumbent president, Vicente Fox, a president-elect, Mr. Calderon, who will take office in December, and a third proclaimed at a public meeting.
The proclamation of Mr. Lopez Obrador as president was received in very different ways. Some observers considered it a farce, others greeted it with enthusiasm, and there were also those who saw it as something that could polarize Mexican society even further.
“Although the present scenario is touchy, it opens up opportunities. Hopefully, the Right will recognize the role of the Left, and manage to create an atmosphere conducive to reaching agreements,” said Silvia Alonso, director of Civic Alliance, a group that has promoted social participation in public affairs since 1994, and acts as an independent observer in elections.
The Fox administration played down the Left’s strategy, while the PAN, to which Mr. Calderon belongs, said that in refusing to recognize the established institutions, Mr. Lopez Obrador was harming the country.
Miguel Granados, a columnist for the left-wing weekly Proceso, said that “instead of mocking or quaking in fear, the outgoing and incoming governments and their party” should make an effort “to understand the essence and the significance of this post-election period.”
Mr. Lopez Obrador, the candidate of the Coalition for the Good of All, which brought together his Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) along with the small Convergencia and Trabajo parties — now known as the Progressive Broad Front — won the votes of 20 percent of the 71.3 million Mexicans on the electoral roll in the July elections.
After his refusal to recognize defeat by Mr. Calderon — who took 20.8 percent of the vote — and his acts of resistance including the 48-day occupation by his supporters of the main Zocalo Square and Reforma Avenue in Mexico City, support for the Left among the population has been waning, according to opinion polls.
“Even though the civil resistance he led has decreased his popularity, there is no doubt that he still has the support of several million Mexicans. If he is determined to destabilize the country, as he has threatened to do, there is good reason to believe that he would be able to do so,” wrote a columnist for the newspaper Reforma, Sergio Sarmiento.
The only foreign government that has indicated that it will not recognize Mr. Calderon is that of Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez said that the Right had perpetrated a fraud in Mexico.
But Mr. Lopez Obrador says that to accept Mr. Calderon as president would go against his principles and the “true will of the people.”
After being proclaimed “legitimate president,” he said he accepted the symbolic post because it represents “an act of peaceful civil resistance,” and a warning to his opponents “that they should learn to respect the will of the people.”
He said he would take up the position in November and will appoint a cabinet. Together, they will travel around the country and take note of the demands of the people. In some aspects, the proposal is similar to the shadow cabinets that function in certain democracies.
The leader of the Left believes that Mr. Calderon will be a spurious president, a “puppet of the Right” as he has called him. He states that he will neither enter into discussions nor negotiate with Mr. Calderon or PAN.
Among the Left’s goals are to curb free trade and privatization, and encourage the fight against poverty. It also wants to reform the constitution and the country’s electoral institutions, which it sees as serving the interests of the economic elites. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us