Mexican leftist Lopez Obrador declares himself president

SHADOW INAUGURATION
As his critics dismiss it as an act of a loser’s desperation, Mexican leftist Lopez Obrador declares himself president
’Parallel’ government begins

By MARION LLOYD

The left struggles in Mexico,Parallel government launched in Mexico
Protesters clash with police in Oaxaca ,Leftists rally in Mexico City, Oaxaca

MEXICO CITY - Mexico’s nearly five-month-old political standoff took a surreal twist Monday when the losing presidential candidate was "sworn in" before tens of thousands of cheering supporters.

"I take the oath to fulfill the Constitution of the Republic as the legitimate president of Mexico," declared Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, after donning the "presidential sash," shimmering in the green, white and red of the Mexican flag.

His followers chanted "Presidente! Presidente!" Many had traveled hundreds of miles, braving bitter cold to pack into the capital’s sprawling central plaza, or Zocalo.

It was a bizarre piece of political theater. For starters, Mexico already has a president - Vicente Fox. And his successor and fellow party member, conservative Felipe Calderon, is due to be sworn in on Dec. 1 before Congress.

But Lopez Obrador, the former leftist mayor of Mexico City, claims that Fox conspired to rob him of victory. And he and his supporters have vowed to prevent Calderon from taking the oath of office.

"Calderon won’t last a year. The people won’t allow it," threatened Luis Hernandez, a 65-year-old street vendor who attended Monday’s ceremony.

"He’s just the puppet of the United States," said Evodio Muñoz, a farmer who traveled six hours by bus from the southern state of Veracruz. "President Bush put him there, so he could steal all our resources and control the Mexican people. But we won’t let him."

Dismissed as desperation
Members of Calderon’s National Action Party dismissed Monday’s ceremony as a desperate act by a fringe radical.

"It’s not worth our attention," Jose Espina, the party’s secretary-general, told Reforma newspaper. "It’s a theatrical montage and no one takes it seriously."

Opinion polls show support for Lopez Obrador has plummeted since July, when he lost the elections by a whisker. Since then, he has adopted increasingly radical tactics.

Sixty-one percent of Mexicans believe Lopez Obrador’s decision to declare himself president hurts the country, according to a poll published Monday in Mexico City’s Reforma newspaper. Only 19 percent supported the act, it said.

But Lopez Obrador dismisses such surveys as part of the "right-wing conspiracy," in which he says the news media are complicit.

He chose Monday as his swearing-in to coincide with Mexico’s annual celebrations of the 1910-1917 Mexican Revolution, when millions of impoverished peasants and liberal reformers fought against the landed elite.

Some 1 million people died in the war, which led to agrarian reform and institutionalized labor rights.

However, nearly a century later, the country remains split between rich and poor.

And if anything, those divisions have grown more pronounced in the six years since the country held its first fully democratic elections.

In recent months, an alliance of leftist groups has seized control of the colonial city of Oaxaca, resulting in bloody clashes in which more than a dozen people have died. And earlier this month, leftist guerrillas claimed responsibility for bomb blasts, which damaged the elections tribunal offices and a political party headquarters.

"There is no democracy in Mexico," said Antonio Ojeda, a 70-year-old construction worker from Veracruz, who was jostling for space in the Zocalo. "If there were, we wouldn’t be here."

Helping the poor
His new government would "defend the rights of the people" against the "rapacious minority," Lopez Obrador vowed.

"They don’t care about the millions of Mexicans who live in poverty and abandonment," he said, referring to the 40 percent of Mexicans who are poor.

In recent days, he has outlined how his "government" will function. Comprised of a 12-person "cabinet" - half of whom are women - it vows to pressure the Calderon administration into helping the poor.

Lopez Obrador himself plans to travel to all of the country’s 2,500 municipalities, hearing grievances against Calderon.

However, even many supporters say the impact of the parallel government won’t be felt quickly.

"This is the worst possible scenario," Guadalupe Loaeza, a political columnist and supporter, said of the protest inauguration.

But, she added, "there is no other route than this."

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