Left vows all-out protest against election fraud

by James Hider
SUPPORTERS of the defeated left-wing presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador are vowing to make Mexico ungovernable after the conservative Felipe Calderón was declared the winner.

Thousands of López Obrador supporters have taken over the capital’s central square and boulevard, turning the area into a camp of tents and soup kitchens, to denounce what they call a vast electoral fraud. So far, police have allowed the protesters to occupy the city centre, but there are concerns over what might happen if the Government of Vicente Fox, the outgoing conservative President, decides to use force to remove the demonstrators.

“I’m here defending democracy from the fraud that was perpetrated by Fox,” said Joel Cruz de la Torre, a 47-year-old teacher registering in the square to take part in elections for a parallel government. “Our representatives don’t represent us — they represent the rich, they do not respond to the 60 per cent of Mexicans who are poor.” The campaign would continue for “as long as it takes”, he said.

Señor López Obrador, who addresses his supporters every evening on the main square, or Zócalo, has yet to outline the form of his parallel government. He is expected to declare it on Independence Day, next Friday, while President Fox makes the traditional cry of “Viva Mexico” on the Zócalo — which will be full of the leftwinger’s supporters. Among the tents on the Zócalo, where hundreds of people sleep, eat and protest in shifts, many feel that Señor López Obrador’s campaign to be declared President will act as a lightning rod for the multitude of protest movements that represent the dispossessed.

Half of the country’s population is thought to live in poverty. Yesterday there was speculation that the protest could include strikes or the establishment of rival councils in rural Mexico. Virgilo López Ortez, a 33-year-old student leader from Oaxaca in the south, said: “In small towns there will be local acts with a big impact. This is a civil, peaceful resistance movement. People are mad about the fraud — this movement will increase.”

Enraged by the electoral committee’s decision that he had lost the vote by just over 200,000 votes out of 42 million cast in July’s elections, Señor López Obrador told supporters who had gathered in heavy rain: “This political regime is rotten. I will never surrender before the rich and the fascists. We will continue in this struggle.”

Señor Calderón, with the slimmest electoral margin in Mexican history, faces a huge challenge in dealing with Señor López Obrador, said Denise Dresser, an expert on Mexican affairs. “López Obrador is going to continue fighting — that is what he does best.”