Posted on 09/17/2006 10:21:01 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
MEXICO CITY - Supporters of defeated presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador named him leader of a parallel government" Saturday during a mass meeting in the same square where President Vicente Fox celebrated Independence Day hours earlier with a giant military parade.
Lopez Obradors supporters, who insist fraud denied the leftist the
July 2 election, derided Fox as a crook" during the parade. Fox and President-elect Felipe Calderon are both from the conservative National Action Party.
After the parade passed, Lopez Obrador supporters moved back into the capitals enormous main square, Zocalo. They set up temporary meeting places for the hundreds of thousands of delegates they expected to attend what they were calling a National Democratic Convention."
Lopez Obrador supporters had camped out for nearly seven weeks in the Zocalo, clogging the heart of the capital until Friday when they agreed to end their protest. On Friday night, as holiday celebrations kicked off, Fox stayed away from the square and went to another city to avoid confrontation with Lopez Obrador loyalists holding their own party there.
Lopez Obrador, who refuses to recognize Calderons election, arrived in the late afternoon Saturday, greeting supporters from a large stage in front of the National Palace.
Convention members, voting with a show of hands, elected Lopez Obrador as Mexicos legitimate" president and formally refused to accept Calderons administration. Calderon is scheduled to take office on Dec. 1.
There has been a big fraud, and we are no longer able to accept that the federal electoral institute spent 28 billion pesos to commit fraud," said Antonio Romano Hernandez, a 56-year-old baker from Mexico City. This convention is the most palpable proof of how the people of Mexico feel."
Shouts of Obrador! Obrador!" were interspersed with organ-grinder music and the loud squawk of plastic horns blown to celebrate Independence Day.
Lopez Obrador said he hoped to mass as many as 1 million people for the event. However, the Zocalo is only accommodates fewer than 200,000 people, according to local news media and an architects association.
Lilia Hernandez, a 40-year-old accountant from Mexico City, said she supported the convention.
I think Lopez Obrador has some real proposals aimed at helping the poor," who make up nearly half of Mexicos population of 107 million.
Lopez Obrador told followers in the Zocalo on Friday that he was not giving up or giving in," and he vowed to follow the convention with a nationwide tour.
During the military celebration Saturday, small groups of his supporters pushed up against metal barricades separating the crowds from the parade holding signs reading Fox, crook" and calling for a full recount of the election that Lopez Obrador lost by a margin of less than 0.6 percent.
Mexicos top electoral court on Sept. 5 declared Calderon the winner of the election by less than 234,000 votes out of 42 million cast.
The ruling, which cannot be appealed, rejected claims by Lopez Obrador that the vote was skewed by systematic fraud and improper spending by the Fox administration.
Mexican leftist former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador waves to his supporters during the opening of the National Democratic Convention at the Zocalo Square, in Mexico City, September 16....Delegates and supporters of Mexican leftist former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, raise their hands to vote during the National Democratic Convention at the Zocalo Square, in Mexico City, September 16. Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans turned independence day into a protest for losing presidential candidate Obrador in Mexico City on Saturday, while President Vicente Fox and the president-elect celebrated outside the capital citing fears of violence.(AFP/Alfredo Estrella)
"I think Lopez Obrador has some real proposals aimed at helping the poor," who make up nearly half of Mexicos population of 107 million."
Let me guess: a bus ticket to the border?
Mexico (the real government there) seems to be concerned about Venezuela...wondering if Hugy and Obrador have something up their sleeves?
He's a leftist. Leftism takes advantage of every opportunity to foster civil unrest which they hope to take to the next level: revolution, the overthrowing of the established order and the installation by force if necessary of a socialist paradise.
Did Obrador hire Gore and Kerry as his political consultants? Same playbook. "You haven't lost as long as you claim your opponent 'stole' the election."
(cutting toenails)
A big clue that democracy is MOB Rule.. merely mob squabbles..
It really don't matter which Mob of mobsters controls Mexico..
Mexico has always been controlled by one Mob or another..
The problem is if Mexicos mobs are consorting with Washington D.C.'s Mobs.. NOW thats a problem.. Democracy is Mob Rule.. pure and simple.. Add Canuckistans's Mobs to the mix and you have a REAL PROBLEM...
Any news on that SuperHighway beteen Mexicoo and Canada through the United States paid for by the United States and Serviced by some foreign entity?...
Thanks!
Hey, I think a separate leftist government would work here in the US.
Allow San Francisco to secede from the rest of the country and proclaim itself a "People's" Republic. Aww, what the heck, give them the city of Berkeley too.
Hillary and Kerry could be co-Presidents and Bawney Frank could be the Minister of Culture. Algore would be Secretary of the Environment.
Since they wouldn't believe in having a military, there would be no need for a Defense Secretary.
Yeah, I like it.
Fox needs to send his Federal troops to
kill Obrador and his supporters.
Illegitimus Communisticus
Regards, Ivan
I don't think I've ever seen a more bored group of protestors. Something tells me they are paid to be there, or denied exit.
Let's hope they propose a 'parallel military' as well and then the fun begins.
Time for some massive arrests.
Wrong. You must be thinking about Fox and his comic books showing how to cross the dessert and become an illegal alien in the U.S.
Actually Obrador was a very good mayor of Mexico City. The only leftest thing he did was to provide a pension of $40 to $60 dollars a month to people over 70. The conservative parties of Fox, PAN, and Bush.Republican, have signed an agreement to give Mexico our social security.
So you think it is OK to kill uneducated, poor Mexican peasants?
Well it is a problem of fraud...the Left didn't get enough dead people to vote this time
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