Under fire, Mexico leftists vow more vote protests

By Lorraine Orlandi

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s government slammed the
main opposition leader on Wednesday for crippling Mexico City
to protest alleged fraud in a tight presidential election, but
his senior aides vowed to turn the screws even tighter.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is heading the protests to
pressure Mexico’s electoral court into ordering a full recount
of votes in the July 2 presidential election he narrowly lost
to the conservative ruling party’s candidate, Felipe Calderon.

Thousands of leftists have seized the capital’s vast Zocalo
square and the main Reforma boulevard in support of Lopez
Obrador, causing three straight days of traffic chaos and
drawing fire from the government.

“Mexico City belongs to everyone. All those who live here
deserve to have their rights respected,” said Ruben Aguilar,
spokesman for President Vicente Fox, in a rare outburst.

He said the leftists were hurting the economy, putting jobs
at risk and violating residents’ rights of free movement.

While the protests have been very peaceful, analysts say
the tactic could backfire by angering residents and alienating
some of Lopez Obrador’s former supporters.

Calderon is trying to take advantage. “They are shooting
themselves in the foot,” a senior aide, Arturo Sarukhan, said
of Lopez Obrador’s Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD.

Lopez Obrador has apologized for the disruption caused by
his followers setting up protest camps in the Zocalo, one of
the world’s biggest squares, and a six-mile (10-km) stretch of
Reforma. But he insists it is a small price to pay and plans to
extend the campaign of civil disobedience even further.

“They didn’t want to believe we would toughen the measures.
And we did. There will be additional ones,” Gerardo Fernandez,
a PRD spokesman, said on Wednesday. He said the new tactics
would be announced in coming days.

HELP THE POOR

Lopez Obrador has a loyal following in Mexico City, where
he was mayor, and among Mexico’s poor, for he has promised
ambitious welfare programs and infrastructure spending.

“He has helped the poor,” said Rafael Zuniga, who voted for
Fox in 2000 but now backs Lopez Obrador and joined the
occupation of Mexico City’s business district.

He said some residents have hurled abuse at him and other
protesters, who sleep on the ground on a main intersection,
cook meals over a gas burner and have not bathed since Sunday.

“The people who go by in their cars are just fighting for
themselves, for their own money, their own jobs. They are not
looking out for anyone else,” he said.

Critics say Lopez Obrador is a rabble-rouser and this
week’s protest has upset many in central Mexico City.

“If this is what Lopez Obrador is like as a candidate, I
don’t want him to be president,” said Victor Manuel Luna, the
head of reception at a downtown hotel where occupancy has
slumped since the protests began on Sunday night.

European Union observers say they found no evidence of
fraud in the election, but Lopez Obrador says he has evidence
vote returns were tampered with.

He wants the electoral court to order a full recount. The
court has until August 31 to decide, meaning the political
deadlock could drag on for at least another month.

The uncertainty hit Mexico’s financial markets earlier this
week, although they rebounded on Wednesday. The peso currency
gained 0.7 percent and the stock market was up 0.86 percent.

Calderon won the election by a narrow margin of just 0.6
percentage points, and insists there was no fraud. His lawyers
said on Wednesday they expect a recount of some ballot boxes
but are confident the results will clearly favor Calderon.

The new president will take office on Dec 1. Fox, whose
election victory in 2000 ended seven decades of one-party rule,
was barred under Mexico’s laws from standing for re-election.