Hail to the Chief
Mexican inauguration erupts into fistfight
James Hider of The Times in Mexico City
Fist fights broke out in Mexico’s Congress today as left-wing members of the house tried to block the inauguration of Felipe Calderon, the
conservative President-elect whose election victory the Left still disputes.
In riotous scenes, scores of Mr Calderon’s National Action Party (PAN) members occupied the stage in the national assembly to prevent rivals from the
Party for Revolutionary Democracy (PRD), which claims its candidate won the July elections, from blocking the ceremony.
Brawls broke out between the two parties, which have both been holding their ground in the assembly for days, bringing in sleeping bags and taking
shifts to prevent the other side from seizing more areas.
Parliamentarians threw chairs and punches at each other, but in the end a suited phalanx of conservative PAN members held the stage long enough for Mr
Calderon to hurriedly step out and receive the presidential sash from his predecessor, Vicente Fox, before being ushered out again by security guards.
Mr Calderon had earlier been provisionally sworn in during an unprecedented private ceremony at midnight, uncertain that he would be able to take the
stage for the traditional investiture. In the end, he spent only for three minutes on the podium, facing PRD banners strung on the assembly’s walls
declaring: "Mexico does not deserve a traitor to democracy as President."
The national anthem he led was almost drowned out by jeers of, "Felipe will fall" from the furious opposition, while triumphant PAN deputies ended
with a chorus of: "Yes we did it, yes we did it!"
The PRD claims its populist candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, was cheated out the July elections, and has launched vast protests since then that
have taken over the centre of Mexico City and threatened to plunge the country into political deadlock.
Last month, Mr Lopez Obrador held his own inauguration ceremony on the capital’s main square, declaring himself legal president and promising to run a
parallel administration.
The centre-right administration has tried to dismiss Mr Lopez Obrador as a fading phenomenon, but today's demonstration proved that the PRD does not
intend to give up easily. Tens of thousands of left-wing supporters gathered on the Zocalo, Mexico City’s central square, to protest the ceremony.
Polls show that some 20 per cent of Mexicans — 20 million people — believe that Mr Lopez Obrador was cheated.
In the southern city of Oaxaca, in one of Mexico’s poorest regions, left-wing protestors took over the city centre where right-wing paramilitaries
have killed several of the demonstrators in clashes, as well as gunning down an American journalist.
While the PAN has tried to downplay the unrest, afraid the instability may shake Mexico’s modest economic growth, many here worry that the optimism
that accompanied the end of 70 years of authoritarian one-party rule in 2000 is now evaporating into political chaos.
"This is not normal," said Sergio Aguayo, a leading human rights advocate. "The war has begun, I mean the trenches have been established."
Mr Calderon faces huge challenges, such as tackling a war with drugs cartels that claimed 2,000 lives in the past year alone; joblessness that sends
hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants into the United States every year; widespread corruption and what many critics refer to as Mexico’s "crony
capitalism".
"Despite of the fact the phrases like free trade and open markets flow trippingly off the tongue of everybody here... there is no opening up of
markets, Mexico has a set of some of the most closed and privileged markets in the world," said US analyst Dan Lund.
While Mr Lopez Obrador’s populist protest movement has forced Mr Calderon — a Harvard-educated former Energy Minister — to address many of the social
issues that his predecessor had ignored, early hard-line appointments in his cabinet indicate the new president may take a more repressive than
emollient line on dissent.
Viva Mexico!
Iflyfish
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