Posted on 09/01/2006 8:22:41 PM PDT by Flavius
Left-wing deputies in Mexico have taken over the stage in Congress, forcing outgoing President Vicente Fox to abandon his final annual address. Before Mr Fox arrived, the legislators, who allege fraud in recent elections, marched onto the main podium where they shouted slogans and sang songs.
Mr Fox will deliver his speech on television from his official residence.
The deputies back Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who says fraud denied him victory in July presidential elections.
Thousands of his supporters have also been protesting outside Congress.
They have been engaged in a tense stand-off with hundreds of riot police, although the police began to disperse after Mr Fox left Congress after failing to deliver his state-of-the-nation address.
Mr Lopez Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) accuses Mr Fox of complicity in what it says was massive fraud in the election, giving victory to the candidate of Mr Fox's National Action Party (PAN), Felipe Calderon, a former minister of Mr Fox.
This week the nation's top electoral court threw out those claims.
Congress clash
Earlier some of the 126 PRD deputies said they would try to stop Mr Fox addressing the Congress.
Opposition MPs say Fox's ruling party has committed fraud
Just before the president was due to arrive, dozens of lawmakers stormed the stage, bearing placards and shouting "Vote by vote!" - the slogan used by Mr Lopez Obrador in demands for a full recount of votes cast in the 2 July poll.
Minutes later Mr Fox arrived and - dressed in his presidential sash - waited in the wings of the congressional stage, at one point stepping forward as if about to try to begin speaking.
But despite appeals from Congress officials, the opposition lawmakers would not be moved and eventually Mr Fox handed his written speech in to officials and was driven away.
He is instead due to deliver his address on television from the presidential palace, as had been decided in contingency plans made amid fears of disruption.
The BBC's Duncan Kennedy in Mexico City says some of Mr Lopez Obrador's supporters will claim this is a symbolic victory - but the ruling party will say it shows Mr Lopez Obrador's supporters are out of control.
Tense protests
Meanwhile, outside Congress, hundreds of police are now vacating a highly fortified zone around Congress.
Earlier some protesters threw bricks and bottles at 4m-high steel barricades, but our correspondent says the protests were largely peaceful, if tense.
Mr Lopez Obrador has led a month-long campaign of street demonstrations calling for a recount of all votes in the election.
Lopez Obrador's supporters have occupied the city for a month
But he has said he does not want his movement to turn violent and on Friday urged supporters not to try to march on Congress.
But with legal and constitutional options now closed to him, the risk of confrontation may be higher, our correspondent says.
Mr Lopez Obrador has even threatened to set up a "parallel government" to rule from the streets.
One of his supporters told the Associated Press he was ready to fight for Mr Lopez Obrador "until the death, until the final consequences".
"We lived 500 years of repression, and now we represent the new face of Mexico," said Fernando Calles, a 26-year-old university professor.
The deadline for the top electoral court to declare a president-elect or call fresh elections is 6 September. Rulings thus far have favoured his opponent, Felipe Calderon.
That is pretty bad when mobs rule and lawlessness has taken over right on our borders.
>>26-year-old university professor.
Apparently tenure comes quickly in Mexico.
What a flake. He's probably either born wealthy or at least a member of the non-productive leftist youth of the upper middle class. One of the strangest things about Mexico is the academic class, which is a peculiar combination of underpaid assistants who have no discernable political views, leftist tenured folk from upper middle class backgrounds, and 45 year old undergraduates who have been living on their stipends since they got into school 25 years ago. The only thing we don't have is the latter, but as far as the non-productive leftists, the US academe is stuffed with them.
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Pay close attention people. This is but one of many things that's stirring in the world. Things are turning, and I don't think the end outcome is gonna be pretty.
Anarchy - coming soon to a neighborhood near you.
This is huge news. A speech is just a speech, but this means far more than that in Mexico. They are not that far from anarchy, so we had better pay attention.
The new anti-West Nexus: The Anachronistic Warhorse Communists, the UN, China, Russia, and the Islamists. The weak will fall before them. The strong must defeat them.
So does ignorance.
BLOAT!
Now, I was living in DC in 68. That was scary, and it was brought on by this same Shadow Party crowd active today.
And this is the nation our fearless leaders want to hitch our national security to. Wonderful...
Some of the same madness afflicts the Democratic Party. If they fail to gain er in November, no telling what they may do. Tnaks, Al Gore, You started this.
Lord know if they start a movement in Califonia.
One tenth of their country has already moved to the USA. Fox and NAFTA have left the Mexicans without jobs in their own country.
All Fox did was give them a comic book on how to become an illegal alien in the US. He has been a pathetic president.
We will probably have more illegals moving in as Bush and Fox have neither addressed the problem. Fox hasn't even thought of taxing the elites.
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