Protestors block Mexico City traffic, tent city rises

MEXICO CITY
Supporters of leftist presidential runner-up Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador turned a two-mile stretch of Mexico City's main thoroughfare into a virtual tent city on Monday, blocking rush-hour traffic and grinding much of downtown to a halt.

City police made no attempt to interfere with the largely peaceful "permanent assembly," which Lopez Obrador organized to press his demand for a recount in his narrow loss to conservative Felipe Calderon in the July 2 presidential elections.

Calderon's camp accused Mexico City Mayor Alejandro Encinas of cooperating with the demonstrators and called for police to clear the demonstrators. But Encinas, a member of Lopez Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, called for calm as he sought negotiations with the protest organizers.

"We're going to act with moderation and intelligence in confronting difficult times on the national political scene, with the understanding that this is a national problem, not just a problem for Mexico City," he said.

The traffic blockage marks a new stage in the post-election dispute which until now has been marked by huge rallies and legal filings before a seven-member tribunal that must decide the case.

On Sunday, however, Lopez Obrador said he would keep his people in the streets - and perhaps even expand the protests - until the tribunal rules.

A ruling is due by Sept. 6, although it is unclear what Lopez Obrador's passionate supporters will do if the court does not order the vote-for-vote recount they are demanding.

Lopez Obrador spent the night in one of the encampments in the Zocalo, where an estimated 1.2 million of his supporters had rallied Sunday in what police said was the largest protest in Mexico's history.

His supporters vowed to remain peaceful, but tempers flared as the encampments paralyzed Mexico City's bustling center.

"We're defending democracy," said Eduardo Lopez, a 19-year-old student camped out with his girlfriend on the Paseo de la Reforma. "We have a constitutional right to protest. We're not breaking the law."

Angry taxi drivers and commuters took a different view.

"Lopez Obrador said his protests would remain peaceful and that they wouldn't interfere with the rights of ordinary citizens," said taxi driver Manuel Flores, who'd been stuck on a side street near the U.S. Embassy since 5 a.m. "With this blockade, they're trampling on our rights. We have no work. If this goes on, there's going to be trouble."

Heeding Lopez Obrador's call Sunday for a campaign of 47 "permanent assemblies," the protesters set up camps along the length of the Paseo de la Reforma, from famed Chapultepec Park to the Zocalo, in the heart of the city's historic center.

By Monday morning, the six-lane boulevard lined with high-rise hotels and office buildings had become a pedestrian mall dotted with tents. Traffic cops directed rush-hour commuters across the boulevard, but made no effort to dismantle the tents and metal barriers that the protesters had set up Sunday night. Local traffic was allowed to pass along two frontage roads alongside Reforma. But many suburban commuters were forced to take narrow side streets, where traffic crawled.

Some drivers honked their horns in support of the demonstration, others just glared.

"It all depends on whom you support," said newspaper hawker Fidel de la Cruz, who wasn't finding many customers on the main boulevard, which was bereft of cars. "People are really divided."

Most people interviewed ranted about the snarled commute.

"Stupid people, who can't accept the results," said exasperated Christine Garduno, 29, who normally takes a mini-bus from her subway stop but instead had to hustle scores of blocks to her job as a secretary. "If they want to have freedom of expression, that's fine. But don't make it so it affects everybody else," said accountant and black-suited Jose Luis Diaz Mares, 26.

At the monument to Christopher Columbus, midway down the Reforma, drivers navigated the traffic circle in irritation, forced to return the route they came. Independent taxi driver Antonio Campos Espinoza _ he had only two passengers in three hours of work _ cursed the protestors and figured he would return home for the day. Manuel Garcia, whose business sells tourist trips, busily worked the phones trying to arrange transportation for his clients.

"You think this would happen in the United States?" he said, shaking his head. "The police would yank them off the streets and take them to jail."

Instead, the local police - the department enjoys close ties to Lopez Obrador, the city's former mayor - received earfuls from angry commuters.

At the nearby intersection of Morales and Gonzalez streets, bank worker Beatriz Serrato Hernandez, 28, eased her tiny, squat sedan to the police line and peppered an officer with questions. His supervisor napped in the front seat of the patrol car.

In the grind that is Mexico City traffic, Serrato Hernandez's commute takes two hours on a normal morning.

"I'm so angry at this guy," she said of Lopez Obrador. "It took me another hour to get to work today."

With tents and police blocking her way, she figured she'd have to park in an unsafe parking lot nearby and go the rest of the way by foot. "I have no other choice," she said.

A block down, workers from the textbook company Ediciones Castillo, barked at police officers who wouldn't let them through a police line, even though it was a half-a-block away.

"We're used to marches, and they always let us into our offices," cried Daniela Luiselli. "But (Lopez Obrador) just wants a confrontation."

Nearby, protestor Eunice Medina Camacho brushed her teeth with bottled water. A nurse from Sinaloa state in northern Mexico, she was using vacation days to protest and had slept in a tent Sunday night. She asked commuters for forgiveness.

"We understand their concern," she said. "But we have to have justice in this country."