 |
|
|
 News Around the Republic of Mexico | November 2006 
Calderon to Take Power
 Alistair Bell - Reuters
| | Calderon, a former energy minister under Fox, says fighting poverty and crime will be his main goals. |
Mexican conservative Felipe Calderon takes the helm of an increasingly violent country on Friday, facing street protests over his razor-thin election victory, a southern state in chaos and a worsening drug war.
Leftists who accuse Calderon of stealing July's election plan protests in the streets and in Congress when he receives the presidential sash from ally President Vicente Fox.
In what might foreshadow things to come, lawmakers from the ruling National Action Party brawled on Tuesday with leftist deputies who dispute Calderon's victory.
A 44-year-old lawyer, Calderon inherited a separate political crisis in the southern state of Oaxaca and a war between drug cartels that torture and behead rivals.
More than 2,000 people, mostly drug traffickers and police, have died in two years in a feud that has spread south from the U.S. border area, including to Calderon's own Michoacan state.
"There are a lot of challenges to stability and they seem too much to handle," said Jorge Zepeda, a biographer of the main candidates in the July 2 election.
Although Mexico's top electoral court and foreign observers found no vote rigging, leftists claimed fraud in the election and they crippled central Mexico City for weeks with a mass sit-in. More protests are planned for the coming days.
"The bad news is that the country is worse than we thought, The good news is that we've underestimated Felipe throughout the campaign. He has managed to overcome a lot of obstacles," said Zepeda.
Calderon received a lift on Wednesday when the Oaxaca crisis eased. Protesters calling for the resignation of Gov. Ulises Ruiz withdrew from a radio station they had held for months and used as a base to store supplies.
Protesters failed in an attempt to take Oaxaca city's main square in a clash with police on Saturday, and about 150 of them were arrested.
The Harvard-educated Calderon showed mettle by unexpectedly winning his party's nomination and then coming from far behind to beat leftist presidential favorite Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador by less than a percentage point.
Lopez Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, has vowed to prevent Calderon from swearing in at a ceremony in Congress on Friday.
Rival lawmakers occupied the platform in Congress on Wednesday, preventing a congressional session from taking place, after PRD deputies and pro-Calderon lawmakers got into a shoving match there on Tuesday.
A huge security operation both on the streets and in the legislature is planned for the inauguration.
POVERTY FIGHT
Mexico only implemented full democracy when Fox ended seven decades of one-party rule in the 2000 election.
A partner of the United States and Canada in the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico has recently avoided the kind of financial upheaval that plagued it in the 1980s and 1990s but the gap between rich and poor is still gaping.
Calderon, a former energy minister under Fox, says fighting poverty and crime will be his main goals.
"What he needs to do is help peasants and indigenous people. If he does that, he'll be successful and be liked. If not, the people are going to be on his case," said Adolfo Posadas, 44, a building caretaker who voted for Lopez Obrador.
Calderon named Francisco Ramirez Acuna as interior minister on Tuesday, drawing new condemnation from leftist politicians who say he used excessive force in breaking up protests when he was governor of Jalisco state.
Despite the challenges, Calderon he has more support in Congress than Fox had and might win energy and fiscal reforms with support of the country's third force, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
Lopez Obrador's PRD says it will take to the streets if Calderon tries to privatize the energy sector, tax food and medicines or bring in repressive labor reforms. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us