Mexico City – President Vicente Fox backed away from another showdown with leftist former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday, announcing that to avoid protesters, he wouldn’t hold his annual Independence Day celebration in the capital’s main Zocalo square.
Lopez Obrador and his supporters had vowed to upstage Fox on Saturday by refusing to take part in the annual salute of “Viva Mexico!” delivered each year by the president.
They are planning their own Independence Day party in the Zocalo, and some had feared clashes if pro-government revelers showed up as well.
Fox will move his ceremony to the small, central town of Dolores Hidalgo, 170 miles northwest of Mexico City, where Roman Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo launched the first call for independence from Spain in 1810.
The town is in Fox’s home state of Guanajuato, a bastion of support for his conservative National Action Party.
The last president to hold Independence Day celebrations in Dolores Hidalgo was Carlos Salinas in 1994.
Supporters of Lopez Obrador have been camped out in the Zocalo for weeks. They have refused to recognize President-elect Felipe Calderon’s slim victory over Lopez Obrador in the July 2 presidential election.
