Mexican President Vicente Fox and supporters of leftist rival Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador held competing Independence Day celebrations hundreds of miles apart after the government received reports that radical groups could unleash violence if Fox led the festivities in the capital's central Zocalo square.
Both open-air parties were raucous in the tradition of Mexican celebrations, but peaceful, without any of the conflicts that some feared would arise if Fox had gone to the Zocalo.
They took place hours after Lopez Obrador supporters permanently ended street protests that had clogged the heart of the capital for nearly seven weeks.
PHOTO: AFP
Felipe Calderon, of Fox's conservative National Action Party, defeated Lopez Obrador, of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, by a margin of less than 0.6 percent in the July 2 presidential election.
Lopez Obrador claims the election was tainted by fraud and refuses to accept Calderon's victory. He blames Fox for illegally spending government money to help Calderon win, a charge Fox has vehemently denied.
Protesters removed the dozens of tents that had occupied Reforma Avenue, a main thoroughfare in the heart of the capital, and from the Zocalo to allow the Mexican military's parade to follow its traditional route yesterday, the official Independence Day holiday.
But they vowed to continue their campaign of civil resistance, starting with a "National Democratic Convention" in which supporters were to be asked yesterday if they want to declare Lopez Obrador as president of a parallel government to challenge Calderon's administration.
Lopez Obrador told followers during a morning appearance in the Zocalo on Friday that he was "not giving up or giving in."
"Tomorrow will start a new era for the construction of the republic," he said, referring to the convention.
The former Mexico City mayor said he hopes to mass 1 million people for the convention and pledged to follow the meeting with a tour across Mexico. "I'm going to visit all the towns in the country," he said.
Lopez Obrador did not appear publicly on Friday night in the Zocalo, where thousands of his supporters waving red, green and white Mexican flags, blowing plastic horns and wearing large sombreros alternated chants of "Obrador! Obrador!" with cries of "Felipe, understand! We don't want you!" and "Fox, understand: The country is not for sale!"
The supporters also carried the yellow flags of Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party and held posters with the ex-candidate's face that read, "Lopez Obrador, president."
Fox was shown on national TV ringing a bell in Dolores Hidalgo.
"Long live our democracy!" the president screamed to crowds gathered under a light rain as he stood in the doorway of the cathedral in the city's central plaza waving a large Mexican flag. "Long live our institutions!"
Both statements echoed remarks Fox has made in recent weeks as he asked people to respect the results of the July elections, which were overseen by the country's autonomous Federal Electoral Institute.
Fox moved his Independence Day ceremony to Dolores Hidalgo, a city of 130,000 people, because the government had "solid information" that "radical groups" were planning violence that could have caused deaths, his spokesman, Ruben Aguilar, told a news conference early on Friday.
Democratic Revolution President Leonel Cota said Aguilar was inventing the threat to discredit the protest movement, and challenged him to name the radical groups.
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