Mexico City – Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador launched a parallel government Monday and swore himself in as Mexico’s “legitimate” president, a ceremony the leftist hopes will keep alive his protests to undermine the man who defeated him at the polls.
The inauguration ceremony is the latest chapter in Lopez Obrador’s unsuccessful battle for the presidency. He claims fraud was responsible for President-elect Felipe Calderon’s narrow victory in the July 2 vote, and his parallel government could spend the next six years calling for protests that have already dented the economy and prompted travel warnings from the U.S. Embassy.
While the red, green and white presidential sash draped across Lopez Obrador’s shoulders Monday lacks legal recognition, he hopes to assume the moral leadership of millions of poor Mexicans.
Based in Mexico City, Lopez Obrador’s parallel government has its own Cabinet, but it will not collect taxes or make laws and will rely on donations to carry out its plans.
“I swear to honor and fulfill the constitution as the legitimate president,” Lopez Obrador said to tens of thousands of supporters in Mexico City’s main plaza, the Zocalo.
“We’re not going to give the right free rein,” Lopez Obrador said in the southeastern state of Veracruz over the weekend. “We’re going to confront it.”
Supporters carried signs lashing out against not only Calderon but the Roman Catholic Church, the mainstream media and rival leftists such as Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos, who repeatedly criticized Lopez Obrador during the campaign.
“We are going to make Calderon realize at all times that he is an illegitimate leader,” said 55-year-old Beatriz Zuniga, an unemployed professor of Latin American studies.
“He’s got a limited amount of time. This man will not finish his term,” she added.
Marco Ramirez, 34, a university researcher watching the crowd from a sidewalk cafe, said he believed many of the demonstrators were receiving money from the Mexico City government, which is run by Lopez Obrador’s Democratic Revolution Party.
“This affects the country’s image,” he said. “It puts out a very bad image.”
It remains to be seen whether Lopez Obrador can keep up the momentum. Some members of his leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, have already expressed disagreement with Lopez Obrador’s strategy of using Congress – where the PRD is now the second-largest force – as an arena for protests rather than negotiations.
