Free Republic

MEXICO CITY, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Leftist protests forced Mexican President Vicente Fox to abandon plans to lead a traditional ceremony in the capital on Friday, the eve of independence day, the Interior Minister said. Fox, targeted by leftists angry at what they say was fraud at July's presidential election, will instead hold the highly-symbolic cry of independence in the central town of Dolores Hidalgo, minister Carlos Abascal told reporters on Thursday. The ceremony, known as "el grito", takes place every Sept. 15 in the central Zocalo square but leftists have vowed to demonstrate against conservative Fox in the plaza.

Protest Encampment on Reforma Avenue is Slowly Being Removed In the stretch which goes from the Petroleum Fountain to the Zocalo capital square few guards are observed, there are now practically no kitchens, storage and food distribution centers Alejandra Martinez El Universal Mexico City Wednesday 13 September 2006 The protest encampments of the For the Good of All coalition which are located about the Paseo de la Reforma are beginning to be removed through an ant-like process, which is to say, in a discrete and gradual way. This Wednesday they have now initiated the removal of gas tanks, sound...

Ebrard's Group Throws Itself Against Cardenas Agustin Guerrero, director of the René Bejarano-supported National Democratic Left (IDN),1 qualified Cuauhtemoc Cardenas2 as a "traitor" to the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). "Cardenas the Engineer3 is not with the PRD in principle nor with its project, and we did not sign a letter of renunciation, we simply made a decision to go to Fox's cabinet, because we are charging him there. That commission for the bicentennial of the celebrations of Independence is not an honorary post, it is a position which has a budget and pays him for organizing it; therefore...

The 10 Points of AMLO's Message Redaction EL UNIVERSAL.com.mx El Universal Mexico City Wednesday 6 September 2006 After the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Power of the Federation (TEPJF) gave its qualification of the presidential election and declared Felipe Calderon President-Elect, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in his informative session [said the following]: 1. He accused the magistrates of the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Power of the Federation of submission, "they did not have the courage, the dignity, the pride, the arrogance to act as free men," in ratifying the triumph of the PAN candidate. 2. He stated that he...

Fernandez Noroña: "We are arriving first at the Zocalo Capital Plaza" The PRD spokesman rejects that they can be evicted by federal forces, because "they will need some five policemen per protestor, because they will have to carry us away." "We are arriving first" at the Zocalo capital plaza of Mexico City, Gerardo Fernandez Noroña, spokesman of the PRD, maintained while arguing that they will celebrate the National Democratic Convention on this spot,1 independently of what the Mexican Army anticipates, which is that the 16th of September will be an Independence Day parade. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has summoned more...

Entire text of the message of President Fox to the nation Message of President Vicente Fox Quesada to the Nation on the occasion of his VI Government Report Mexican men and Mexican women: As President of the Republic, the Constitution obligates me to attend the Congress each year, to present before the Deputies and Senators, a report about the results of the management of the Federal Government. On this occasion, a group of legislators of the Party of the Democratic Revolution prevented the President of the Republic from being able to direct his message to the Congress and to the...

After four months of relative quiet, immigration reform advocates are mobilizing a new round of protests in Washington and other cities to put pressure on a returning Congress and reinvigorate a Latino movement that awakened in massive demonstrations this spring. The events will begin tomorrow in Chicago, where demonstrators plan to set out on a four-day march to the district offices of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R) in Batavia, Ill., and will continue with one-day rallies throughout next week in Phoenix, Washington and Los Angeles... ...But organizers say the movement has not lost steam. Immigrants, they said, are enthusiastic...

PRD vows to block Informe BY JONATHAN ROEDER/THE HERALD MEXICO El Universal August 31, 2006 Though presidential spokesman Rubén Aguilar on Wednesday said he trusted that President Vicente Fox´s annual State of the Nation Address (Informe) will be received with respect by congressmen, a top official from the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) countered that "at least 10" ways of preventing the speech from being delivered were under consideration. Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, the PRD´s secretary-general, said he and three other party leaders will decide "exactly two hours" before the event on Friday what action will be taken. "There will be no...

Tribunal finds no evidence of fraud Wire services El Universal August 29, 2006 The nation's top electoral court announced Monday that a partial recount of the votes in the disputed presidential election found no evidence of widespread fraud, a ruling that placed conservative Felipe Calderón tantalizingly close to victory. In a 7-0 ruling, the Federal Electoral Tribunal said it had found only minor mathematical and administrative errors in the initial vote count of the July 2 election. The tribunal said Monday its recount subtracted just 4,183 votes from Calderón's margin of victory, reducing it to about 240,000 over left-leaning candidate...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's top electoral court threw out leftists' allegations of massive fraud in last month's presidential election on Monday, handing almost certain victory to conservative candidate Felipe Calderon. The seven judges voted unanimously to reject most of the legal complaints by left-wing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who said he was robbed of victory in the July 2 vote. His supporters have paralyzed Mexico City with protests this month and he has vowed to make Mexico ungovernable if the court declares Calderon the winner of the country's most bitterly contested election in modern history. The initial result...

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador: "They are stealing the presidency from me" Which are the elements making it possible to establish that there was fraud at the time of the elections of July 2 in Mexico? For more than three years we were victims of a campaign of all the state apparatus with the active participation of the President of the Republic because we represent an alternative project. Our adversaries wanted to destroy us politically. They tried to discredit me with the help of videos, but it was demonstrated that it was the acting out of a plot of former...

In the more than three weeks since the firebrand populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador began his protests in Mexico City to dispute the slim victory of his conservative rival Felipe Calderon in the July 2 presidential election, the Federal Electoral Tribunal has rejected a full recount and, after conducting a limited recount, found no evidence of fraud or serious irregularity. Mr. Lopez Obrador's opposition has become more vehement, however, most likely in anticipation of a final decision due from the Federal Electoral Institute on Sept. 6. The protests have caused problems for commuters and turned away tourists and visitors, costing...

The PRD: Solid in its decision to fight the imposition of Calderon The national director of the the PRD warns that "if they perpetrate the imposition [of Calderon as President] we are going to mobilize wherever they attempt to give proof of his majority." Leonel Cota Montaño made clear that "we are not going to modify a single line of resistance which the For the Good of All coalition has maintained in demanding the transparency of the presidential election." The national leader of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) said that it will solidly oppose "the decision to...

Displaying signs that said, ARCHBISHOP NORBERTO, HELL IS WAITING ON YOU, and a sign that said, GOD IS NOT PANISTA, dozens of protesters tried to push their way into the Cathedral in downtown Mexico City

Precinct reports of the Southern Most State of Mexico

Andrés Manuel López Obrador´s call for an ongoing "convention" of supporters to act as an extra-governmental political force underscores a tactical shift that has already changed the tone of the post-electoral dispute and also could define how Mexico is governed over the next six years. The proposed National Democratic Convention (CND), set to meet for the first time in Mexico City´s Zócalo on Sept. 16, seems designed to convert the current López Obrador-led civil resistance movement into a permanent political movement functioning outside the confines of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD). It also promises to be a permanent thorn...

Perredista,1 one third of the "Simulated Republic" AMLO wants to bring down Yesterday AMLO invoked constitutional Article 39 with everyone and made his appeal to the "people (who) have at all times the inalienable right of altering or modifying the form of their government." And he justified his appeal with the example of the Zapata uprising against President Madero, even though the Zapatista "Ayala Plan"2 was lauched in 1911, six years before the promulgation of the Constitution of 1917 and the vigorous entrance of its now publicized Article 39. But this inconsistency (of a grade school history book) is...

Will a fair vote stand? IN THE 6 1/2 weeks since he narrowly lost Mexico's presidential election, Andrés Manuel López Obrador has turned the nation's politics into a public spectacle. A fiery populist with a messianic streak, Mr. López Obrador has led thousands of his supporters to pitch tent cities in downtown Mexico City, occupying the Zocalo, its main square, and a two-mile stretch of the Paseo De La Reforma, one of its major boulevards. He has denounced the election as a fraud and the product of a vast conspiracy, without furnishing even remotely convincing proof. Now, after a...

AMLO Summons a National Democratic Convention The PRD member evokes Article 39 of the Constitution to affirm that the people are the only ones who can change the government; he recalls the "Ayala Plan," signed by Emiliano Zapata. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador launched his call for a "National Democratic Convention For the Good of All," with its basis in Article 39 of the Constitution, to be held the 16th of September in the Zocalo capital square [in Mexico City]. The PRD member read said constitutional precept aloud and recalled that therein it is indicated that national sovereignty resides in...

Encinas warns that an institutional political crisis is near He indicates that the GDF1 will not permit elements of the Federal Preventive Police to go out from their assigned perimiters. The Head of Government of the Federal District, Alejandro Encinas, warned that [the country] is on the brink of passing from a post-electoral conflict to an institutional political crisis. "I believe that there are three objectives in the situation which our country is living through. I believe that we are passing from a post-electoral conflict to an institutional political crisis. Whoever does not want to see it as such,...