Mexico's leftist presidential candidate laid out plans for a long-term resistance movement that will constantly pressure the government for the next six years, amid growing signs that a recount will fail to reverse the lead of his conservative rival, Felipe Calderon.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told tens of thousands of followers at a protest camp in Mexico City's main square on Sunday to dig in for a fight that could possibly last for years, including the kinds of street demonstrations that have paralyzed the center of this metropolis of 20 million for the last two weeks.
"Shall we fight to the last?" he asked the crowd of tens of thousands of supporters. "Shall we stay here as long as it takes?"
PHOTO: EPA
The crowd screamed "Yes!"
He called for more large-scale protests on Sept. 1, when President Vicente Fox gives his last state-of-the-nation address, and on Sept. 6, the deadline for the country's top electoral court to name a president-elect.
The protesters remain convinced that fraud was involved in the official count that gave ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon a slight lead in the July 2 race, and that a full recount of all 41 million votes would swing the election in favor of Lopez Obrador.
Instead, the top electoral court ordered a recount of the 9 percent of the polling places with evidence of irregularities.
Lopez Obrador also announced plans to hold a "national democratic convention" on Sept. 16, Mexico's independence day, to "reform" the government.
"If the people's will is ignored by the rich and powerful, we must fight for a national renewal and the reform of the nation's institutions," Lopez Obrador said.
"Here and now, we are starting a new stage in the public life of Mexico ... we will carry out, with the power of the people, the changes this country needs," he said.
Street politics has a long tradition in Mexico, but it's unclear how this new effort will take shape. Lopez Obrador suggested it would be a long-term anti-government movement outside of electoral politics, a "watershed in Mexican history."
"He's going to do the only thing he can, which is to be a constant media presence, in permanent activism, for the next six years," according to political analyst Oscar Aguilar.
"He's going to be the new Marcos," Aguilar also said, referring to the media-savvy leader of the Zapatista rebels, who has continued protesting, with diminishing returns, since his Indian-rights movement staged a brief armed uprising in southern Chiapas state in 1994.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
RSS