Mexico erupts in protest over election fraud

In a wave of brazen protests, activists have taken over the center of folkloric Oaxaca. The protests erupted in late June after a demonstration of striking teachers seeking a wage increase was attacked by police using tear gas. Since then, thousands of demonstrators have camped out in the center of Oaxaca, spraying buildings with revolutionary slogans, smashing hotel windows and making tourists show identification at makeshift checkpoints. Most tourists are staying away, costing the city millions of dollars. The protest leaders, a mix of trade unionists and leftists, say their fight is not with the tourists but with Gov. Ulises Ruiz, whom they accuse of rigging the state election in 2004 and using force to repress dissent. Ruiz belongs to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has governed the state of Oaxaca since 1929. However, posters around the city declare the movement is also against the Guelaguetza dance festival because "only the rich and foreigners" can afford the $42 entrance fee. "We have seen the festival of our people become a circus that is just for whites and gringos and Europeans," said Rosendo Ramirez, 51, a spokesman for the Oaxaca People's Assembly, formed to coordinate the protests. Ramirez says the checkpoints were set up to weed out agitators. But he concedes the group has no control over many protesters, including some anarchists and communists who have come to Oaxaca to join the movement. Thousands have camped out in the city center, sleeping under tarpaulins. Speakers declare the revolution has arrived, while dozens hold political debates. Gunmen attacked Oaxaca's university radio station late on July 22, the latest incident in a wave of confrontations and protests that have driven many tourists out of this historic Mexican city. The university radio station has supported the wave of protests aimed at ousting Ruiz. Assailants fired rounds of ammunition into the station's windows while it was broadcasting, the Oaxaca state government said. Nobody was hurt in the attack. Witnesses said the attack was carried out by at least 10 assailants wearing ski masks. Dozens of protesters, including teachers, students and leftist activists, went with sticks and stones on July 23 to guard the radio station. Business leaders have called on the state to intervene in the escalating situation, but state Interior Secretary Heliodoro Diaz says authorities have to tread carefully to avoid antagonizing the protesters. Some fear the tensions might explode if federal troops are sent in. "There is rising social conflict in Mexico and the government appears impotent and unable to confront it," historian Lorenzo Meyer said. These protests and other eruptions of civil unrest and class conflict have plagued President Vicente Fox as his term winds to a close. In Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, leftist presidential candidate from the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), says he has been the victim of a broad conspiracy among the incumbent, election officials, other party leaders and business tycoons to rob him of the presidency. Since the official count, Obrador, 52, a former mayor of Mexico City who champions the cause of Mexico's poor, has been playing a high-stakes game of brinksmanship, appearing on television to hurl allegations of fraud. Two weeks ago, an official vote tally showed the conservative candidate, Felipe Calderón, of the National Action Party, had won by a narrow margin of 243,000, or .58 percent. Obrador contends he has found errors in arithmetic in some 72,000 polling places–more than half of the total. He also maintains he has found evidence of fraud in which poll workers took votes away from him or padded the vote for his opponent in dozens of polling places. He has held two marches attended by hundreds of thousands of people and has called on his followers to engage in unspecified acts of civil disobedience. How far he would take acts of civil disobedience to protest the results would be guided by "the feelings of the people," he said. Without a recount, he said, the peace of the country is in jeopardy, a threat his opponents have said amounts to blackmail. "One can interpret it however one likes," he said in the interview at his campaign headquarters in Mexico City. "It's very simple," he added. "If we permit electoral fraud, we are accepting that they violate our human rights, and we are not ready to accept that those who voted be insulted. We are going to defend the vote. We are going to defend the democracy." On July 19 protesters obstructed an entire block in the Mexico City's colonial center, where the Mexican unit of Citigroup, known as Banamex, has two buildings, according to bank spokesman Jose Ortiz- Izquierdo. The blockade, which lasted from 7:45am to 12:30pm, prevented customers and 700 of 800 employees from entering, he said. In the meantime, Obrador has repeatedly challenged his opponent to agree to a recount, arguing that it is the only way to preserve the peace. "If he is sure of having won, he doesn't have any reason to refuse a recount," Obrador said. "Because if he should win, it would strengthen him, he would obtain legitimacy that he doesn't have because of the unfair way the election was carried out." A high federal court in Mexico is reviewing the leftist opposition's claims of fraud in the July 2 presidential elections, while election observers and independent experts point to irregularities and suspicious developments seen before, during and after election day. The court has until Sept. 6 to rule on the claims and name a president. According to the charges of fraud, the federal social program Oportunidades was used to pressure actual or potential beneficiaries to vote for the governing party candidate, Felipe Calderón. The leftist PRD, which is demanding a vote-by-vote recount, also maintains that hundreds of polling stations showed more ballots cast than the number of registered voters. To back up his claim that he won the elections, Obrador presented video recordings in which individuals (poll workers, according to the PRD) can allegedly be seen illegally stuffing ballot boxes. He claims there are one and a half million extra votes that cannot be accounted for. In addition, the party complains that the business community and sectors of the Catholic Church aggressively campaigned against Obrador. Alicia Alonso with Civic Alliance, a non-governmental election watchdog organization that formed part of the nearly 24,000 independent observers during the elections, told IPS that prior to July 2, her group found evidence that the Oportunidades social assistance program was being used to coerce people to vote for Calderón. "We cannot maintain that generalized fraud was committed, but we can state that irregularities which could influence the final outcome were committed," she said. Alonso said that several weeks before the elections, Civic Alliance carried out 11,500 interviews among beneficiaries of the Oportunidades program in 23 of Mexico's 31 states, and that respondents told them that the authorities had made it clear that they had to vote for Calderón in order to keep their benefits. The national coordinator of Oportunidades, Rogelio Gómez Hermosillo, denied that the program was used for electoral ends, although he admitted that the government had stepped up support in poor urban areas ahead of the elections. He said, however, that "we told [the beneficiaries] that this was not done for electoral purposes and that they were free to vote how they chose." The Civic Alliance also protested an offensive by the Business Coordinating Council consisting of radio and TV spots against the left-leaning candidate, who was compared in the ads to Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chávez and described as a threat to Mexico's stability.