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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | November 2006 
Mexico Leftists Camp in Congress to Stop Calderon
 Frank Jack Daniel - Reuters
| | A congressional lawmaker from the Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD) rests on a sleeping bag during an attempt to take over the congress just days before the inauguration of Felipe Calderon as Mexican president in Mexico City November 29, 2006. (Tomas Bravo/Reuters) |
Leftist lawmakers who brawled with rivals in Mexico's Congress vowed on Wednesday to camp out there and wreck conservative President-elect Felipe Calderon's inauguration later this week.
The leftists say Calderon stole July's presidential election with fraud and say they will not let him swear in on Friday at a ceremony in Congress to be attended by some Latin American leaders and former U.S. President George Bush.
Chaotic scenes of dozens of rival lawmakers punching and kicking each other on the floor of the lower house on Tuesday were a new blow for Mexico, already reeling from leftist street protests over Calderon's election, violence in the popular tourist city of Oaxaca and a spate of bombings in the capital.
Lawmakers upturned furniture, shoved each other and vied for control of the main podium, where Calderon is to put on the presidential sash. Both the leftists and deputies loyal to Calderon said their opponents used pepper gas in the ruckus.
Mexico has been polarized since the election, which Calderon won by less than 0.6 percentage points.
Losing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has declared himself Mexico's "legitimate president" and vows to hound Calderon, a former energy minister in outgoing President Vicente Fox's government.
Deputies from both left and right occupied the Congress podium on Wednesday morning, with those from Calderon's National Action Party saying they are there to prevent more leftists storming it.
Congress has been surrounded by a high metal fence and hundreds of federal police since last week on government fears of protesters setting up camp outside the imposing building.
The standoff continued overnight, with occasional outbursts of violence. The chamber was draped with protest banners on Wednesday morning as deputies emerged from sleeping bags and sprawled on stairways reading newspapers.
"We have decided to stay," said Gerardo Fernandez, spokesman for the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution. "We are determined that the usurper will not be sworn-in."
Fernandez said thousands of leftist supporters would protest in Mexico City's giant Zocalo square on Friday, a few blocks away from Congress.
Some lawmakers say Calderon should hold his inauguration at an alternative site to reduce tensions but the government insists the event will be in Congress.
"It will be there. There is no doubt about it," presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar said on Wednesday.
The government says Calderon automatically becomes president at the stroke of midnight on November 30 regardless of whether he is able to formally swear in at the ceremony in Congress. |
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