Church calls for calm as in Mexico vote crisis

By Greg Brosnan

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s Roman Catholic Church
pleaded for calm on Thursday as bickering between the left and
right neared the boiling point in a country plunged into
political limbo by a contested presidential election.

Conservative Felipe Calderon won the July 2 vote by a tiny
margin, but leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has mounted a
legal battle against the result, backed by massive street
protests and threats of civil disobedience by his supporters.

With no sign of a final ruling from Mexico’s electoral
court before September, what has so far been a war of words is
threatening to escalate into violence.

Vandals this week ripped up a poster exhibition along
Mexico’s main avenue by leftist artists charging vote fraud and
supporters of Lopez Obrador pounded on Calderon’s car as he was
leaving a meeting, swearing and screaming abuse at him.

“We need to strengthen the climate of peace in our country,
because when this is destroyed it causes enormous suffering to
everyone,” four of the predominantly Catholic country’s top
bishops said in full-page insert placed in newspapers.

It was also signed by Archbishop Norberto Rivera, the
country’s main churchman. The church called for a week of
prayer for “reconciliation, understanding and peace” beginning
on July 31.

‘PROMOTE PEACE’

Calderon echoed the bishops’ plea. “We must do everything
we can to promote peace, starting by avoiding provocation and
violence,” he said in a speech to construction industry
leaders.

He urged supporters to hang white ribbons and flags from
cars and houses — a shift for his campaign, which has so far
steered clear of defending his win in the streets.

Lopez Obrador promises to lift millions out of poverty, but
richer Mexicans tended to support Calderon, of President
Vicente Fox’s ruling party, and fear the leftist would inflame
class tensions and run up debts.

The country is the latest ideological battleground in Latin
America, which has swung to the left in recent years. And
passions are running higher every day as Calderon appears set
to buck the trend.

Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, says a
vote-for-vote recount is the best way to preserve peace and
stability.

“Transparency is not much to ask for. We’ve done studies
and all it take for a recount is six days, which would give us
six years of political, economical and financial stability,” he
told a radio station.

Lopez Obrador brought some 20 boxes of documents to the W
Radio studio which he said contained copies of around 30,000
vote tally sheets, of a total of 130,500 from polling day,
which had arithmetical errors on them.

The International Monetary Fund said Mexico’s economic
fundamentals remain sound and it hopes the political dispute
will not drag on.

“What we have said on Mexico is that it has robust
fundamentals. We, like others, are hoping that this process
will come to a closure soon. Our expectations are that the
fundamentals are and remain robust,” said IMF director of
communications Masood Ahmed.

With 41 million votes cast, official results gave Calderon
a lead of around 240,000, but Lopez Obrador has warned of
unrest if all the ballots are not counted again. Calderon’s
team says that would be illegal and insists he won fairly.

(Additional reporting by Alistair Bell and Noel Randewich)