Mexico City – Supporters of the leftist and fraud-crying contender for the Mexican presidency created massive gridlock here Monday by blocking streets of this already traffic-clogged megalopolis to press demands for a recount of ballots cast four weeks ago.
The protests came after a massive rally Sunday where Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador urged his supporters to establish permanent “resistance” camps in Mexico City.
What the candidate’s PRD party is calling a “mega-sit-in” covers the capital’s biggest square, the Zocalo, and one of the city’s main thoroughfares, Reforma.
On either side of that tree-lined street of only 8 kilometers (5 miles) are luxury hotels, the attorney general’s office and other government entities and the Mexican Stock Exchange.
On Sunday, the coalition backing Lopez Obrador set up 47 encampments in the Federal District with a vow to maintain them until the TRIFE electoral tribunal agrees to a “vote-by-vote” recount of all 41 million ballots cast on July 2.
The candidate himself spent the night in a camp in the Zocalo, where he addressed more than 500,000 partisans Sunday at the third such gathering since election officials declared that conservative Felipe Calderon edged out the leftist by just over a half-percentage point in the voting.
Sources at the municipal police information office told EFE that the force had no plans for special measures to deal with the traffic problems caused by the protests.
The city elected a PRD mayor in the July 2 vote. Lopez Obrador himself was mayor of the capital, which is his political bastion.
“As of now, all we are doing is remaining vigilant. The streets will remain as they are,” one police source said.
A top official of the city government, Ricardo Ruiz, said in a radio interview that “freedom of movement is not affected” by the sit-in, as drivers can use alternative routes to get around the extra congestion on Reforma.
He said the municipal administration’s plan is to negotiate with the protesters in order “to free-up some zones” that are usually problematic at rush-hour.
“We are very actively helping, first, to guarantee the security of the right to demonstrate, but also by seeing to the best conditions so citizens can conduct their activity in this area,” Ruiz said.
In no circumstances, he said, will force be employed against protesters.
The national government, headed by President Vicente Fox, said Monday it was confident in the ability of local authorities to handle the situation and that federal police will only intervene if city officials ask for assistance.
Presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar used his daily press briefing to renew the administration’s “message of calm” to citizens and financial markets. He also stressed that the electoral dispute has not hurt the Mexican economy.
National Action, the party of both Fox and Calderon, condemned the sit-ins and said they were hurting the roughly 20 million residents of Greater Mexico City.
Party spokesman Cesar Nava blasted the capital’s interim mayor, Alejandro Encinas, for his “complacency” in the face of the traffic jams, telling local radio that the municipal chief “has neglected his obligations and has become one more activist in the Lopez Obrador campaign.”
In 1991, National Action supporters blocked highways and occupied a municipal airport to protest electoral chicanery that robbed future President Fox of the governorship of his home state of Guanajuato.
TRIFE has until Sept. 6 to name the president-elect, who is due to be sworn-in Dec. 1 for a six-year term.
