Leftist demonstrators blocked access to foreign banks in Mexico
on Wednesday to protest what they said was election fraud while
judges and troops oversaw a partial recount that could decide
July's presidential vote.
Supporters of leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador surrounded
main offices in Mexico City of US-based Citigroup's Mexican unit
Banamex, Bancomer bank owned by Spain's BBVA and British giant
HSBC, closing them for several hours.
Lopez Obrador, a fiery anti-poverty campaigner, narrowly lost
the July 2 vote to ruling party conservative Felipe Calderon. He
says many votes for him went untallied while others were stolen
from ballot boxes, and is demanding a recount of all 41 million
ballots cast.
Guarded by soldiers, election officials began a recount of votes
from 9 percent of polling stations. The partial recount was ordered
by the electoral court to clear up fraud charges.
Lopez Obrador's followers have crippled downtown Mexico City for
the past 10 days by setting up tents on the main Reforma boulevard
running through the business district.
On Wednesday, Lopez Obrador urged demonstrators to keep up their
stand for a country-wide recount, and said his team would start
delivering flyers to homes to make up for a national press biased
against him.
"We do not accept the partial recount because our minimum,
rational, fair demand is the recount of all the votes, polling
station by polling station," he said.
Wednesday's protests had a nationalist tinge. Demonstrators
draped a banner in Mexico's red, white and green colors across a
Banamex office in the capital's Spanish colonial center.
All but one of Mexico's major banks are in the hands of foreign
companies and the industry's sell-off has been a symbol of the free
market reforms in Mexico disliked by the left.
"Banamex is really Citigroup, a foreign bank that ransacks the
country," said Gerardo Fernandez, spokesman for the leftist Party
of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD.
"It's them who are screwing the nation!" protesters chanted
outside the HSBC building, a shiny new skyscraper on Reforma, as
riot police stood guard and the Mexican Banks' Association
threatened legal action against the organizers.
Judges, election officials and party representatives have until
midnight Sunday to check some 4 million votes at 11,839 voting
stations.
One recount in Mexico City was painfully slow, with PRD members
asking court actuaries to note every detail of the proceedings. It
took about an hour to tally a few hundred votes in front of a
judge.
In the first few hours, officials detected serious
irregularities in at least 15 of the 149 electoral districts being
checked, said senior PRD figure Ricardo Monreal.
In the northern border city of Tijuana, journalists saw dozens
of votes lying on the floor of a depot where ballots were supposed
to have been locked inside sealed boxes.
About 50 out of 91 ballot boxes at the depot appeared to have
been opened or tampered with, witnesses said.
Calderon's campaign insists the election was clean.
If the partial recount shows Lopez Obrador closing the gap on
Calderon, it could force the electoral court to open more ballot
boxes. If there is no big change in the numbers, Lopez Obrador will
come under heavy pressure to give up his fight.
Many fear the power struggle could turn violent, posing the
biggest challenge to Mexican democracy since President Vicente Fox
won power in 2000 and ended seven decades of one-party rule
infamous for corruption and fraudulent elections.
Despite fiery rhetoric and growing tension, Lopez Obrador vows
his protests will remain peaceful.
(Chinadaily.com via agencies August 10, 2006)
