Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

MEXICO: Government Backs Down, to Defuse Tension

Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Sep 14 2006 (IPS) - Mexican President Vicente Fox backed down from his plan to celebrate independence day Friday in Mexico City’s central Zócalo square, which has been occupied by the left for seven weeks, thus averting potential violent clashes.

Fox will leave the square to the leftist protesters, because the government believes “in the higher unity of all Mexicans,” and that there is no “true democracy without respect, dialogue and agreement in the face of differences,” said Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal.

The government’s decision came in response to an urgent call by the Senate to prevent violent clashes. The political tension in Mexico was threatening to spill over into violence Friday, when for the first time in history a president and a leftwing leader would have both been in the main square of the capital, on different platforms and surrounded by different audiences, to commemorate the country’s independence.

The left’s presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose supporters have occupied the Zócalo square since late July to protest the fraud they claim occurred during the Jul. 2 elections, have refused to leave the square where traditionally, at midnight on every Sept. 15, the incumbent president leads the historic cry or “grito” of independence.

“We will give the cry,” said López Obrador, while Fox stated that he would follow tradition and be present, also, in the Zócalo. Until Thursday afternoon, none of the calls from various sectors to reduce the tension and backpedal from these positions had borne fruit.

But now, Fox will still give the “grito” of independence Friday night, but in the central state of Guanajuato, the interior secretary reported. The decision was reached “after pondering what is best for the nation,” said Abascal.

If Fox had not changed his mind, both the president and López Obrador would have been in the same place at midnight Friday, one on a government palace balcony and the other on a platform, separately presiding over the most historic and popular Mexican civic ceremony which commemorates the start of the war of independence from Spain, in 1810.

It was highly likely that the two crowds of supporters, polarised by the results of the presidential elections, would have clashed. Last week, the electoral court confirmed that Felipe Calderón of the governing National Action Party (PAN) beat out López Obrador of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) by barely half a percentage point.

“This is a show of good sense by the government,” Ricardo Pascoe, former PRD leader and one-time Mexican ambassador to Cuba, told IPS. “I see it as a welcome attitude.”

In his view, Fox’s change of plans should not be taken as a yielding by the government to the power of the left.

He said radicalism is damaging López Obrador’s movement, “which is going through a tense internal process of self-definition between reformists and revolutionaries.”

A first sign that the Fox administration was seeking to avoid confrontation came when the president declared Thursday morning that his administration “will never create discord, will never promote division,” and promised that he would “measure up to the needs of the times (because) we are committed to unity, and are constantly seeking dialogue.”

López Obrador’s supporters dug in their heels in the Zócalo Thursday, setting up large megaphones around the square, which can accommodate more than 150,000 people.

The president’s bodyguard (the “Estado Mayor Presidencial”) had also set up large loudspeakers and cordoned off the government palace.

“Messrs. Fox and López Obrador are both acting irresponsibly” in their determination to preside over a national ceremony at one and the same time, according to Ricardo Alemán, a columnist for the newspaper El Universal. In his opinion, both men are behaving like “a pair of alley fighters.”

The political parties – the PRD and the small Trabajo and Convergencia parties – that backed the leftwing presidential candidate founded a “Broad Progressive Front” Thursday, which they said would bring together all the political and social organisations that wish to join their struggle.

The left does not recognise the legitimacy of president-elect Calderón, and has announced that it will endeavour to prevent his inauguration on Dec. 1. They also call Fox a “traitor to democracy” for openly backing his party’s candidate in the campaign.

The leftist parties will hold a “National Democratic Convention” in the Zócalo on Saturday afternoon, at which their members will designate a “parallel” government, headed by López Obrador, which will push, they say, for institutional changes in the country “through peaceful means.”

But the events scheduled by the left for Friday and Saturday also appear to have been planned as an end to seven weeks of occupation of the Zócalo and the main Reforma avenue.

Followers of the leftwing candidate promised to tear down their camps in the occupied areas by the early hours of Saturday morning. This is being done to allow the traditional military parade to take place on the national holiday.

After the festivities, the left will return to the Zócalo to hold their Convention, before leaving for good on Saturday night, thus ending their occupation of the Zócalo and Reforma avenue.

“The PRD, which is the power base of this whole opposition movement, is experiencing great tension between those who are in favour of abiding by the established institutions and those who are talking of revolution,” said Pascoe, who left the PRD in 2003 and subsequently supported Calderón in the campaign leading up to the July elections.

Some PRD legislators and local authorities say they are interested in dialogue with the new government, but others refuse to engage in talks.

“We are not divided, it’s just that there are different points of view, but we all agree together on supporting our leader (López Obrador),” the secretary general of the PRD, Guadalupe Acosta, told IPS.

Pascoe believes that “the institutional left that Mexico needs is falling into a pit that will certainly be difficult to climb out of.”

According to a national telephone survey of 1,603 respondents carried out Sep. 3-9 by the private polling firm Ulises Beltrán y Asociados, only seven percent of those interviewed backed the protests and other resistance actions led by López Obrador.

While 24 percent of those interviewed still thought that the leftwinger really won the election, 60 percent said that the verdict of the electoral court confirming Calderón’s victory should be taken as definitive.

The survey, which was in line with the results of others carried out previously by other polling firms, indicated that the proportion of people holding a “good” or “very good” opinion of Calderón rose from 52 percent in June to 66 percent this month.

The reverse was true for López Obrador. Fifty-nine percent now have a “poor” opinion of him, compared to 33 percent before the elections.

In the same survey, López Obrador was perceived as “desperate” by 76 percent, “intransigent” by 74 percent, and “out of his mind” by 71 percent.

“If the elections were held today, whom would you vote for?” the newspaper Reforma asked 1,555 citizens between Aug. 18-20. Forty-three percent of respondents answered “Calderón” while 24 percent said “López Obrador.” The survey had a margin of error of 2..5 percent, according to its authors.

In the Jul. 2 elections, each of the two candidates garnered nearly 35 percent of the ballots cast.