On July 2nd, the people of Mexico voted for a new president for the first time in six years. Last week, two months after the elections, the federal electoral tribunal announced that after a partial recount. Felipe Calderon, the conservative candidate, had in fact won the contested election fairly. But even after five weeks, tens of thousands of people are still camped out in the center of Mexico City in front of the presidential and congressional palaces. They are led by the leftist candidate Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, a.k.a. AMLO. There is no end in sight.
One of the intrinsic weaknesses of peoples’ movements is their tendency to lose momentum after the initial excitement and novelty has worn off. There has been a decline in international media coverage of the events in Mexico, but based on sources within the country, the energy at the grass-roots level is still going strong.
After the elections, which closed showing a fraction of a percent lead by Calderon, the AMLO camp, which had support from much of the working class, rural and indigenous populations, vowed that they would demand justice and legitimate democracy. They claimed election fraud and mounted two mass protests yielding over a million supporters each time. On July 30th, they moved into the Zócalo, the central plaza in Mexico City, and its main thoroughfare, Avenida La Reforma.
The occupation of the city’s center in protest is no temporary affair, and AMLO’s party compatriots in the public works departments of Mexico have hooked up electricity and propane for cooking the hot meals so important for the morale of the protesters. Microwaves, televisions and sound systems provide some of the comforts of home. Last week, 150 newly elected officials from AMLO’s party prevented outgoing President Fox from delivering his final state of the union address, literally occupying the speaker’s platform and chanting for a full ballot recount.
Taken out of context, the fact that the president could not deliver this speech in person is preposterous. The fact that people have left their homes and jobs for over a month to demand a full recount of ballots seems unrealistic. But these realities are occurring in a country waking up to political consciousness on a massive scale. Teacher-led protests in Oaxaca this summer escalated into a confrontation with the police, involving blockades and occupied radio stations. The movement of the Zapatistas campaigned around the country for the first five months of the year trying to connect popular struggles and provide an alternative to the conventional political system. The ongoing occupation of the city center is another manifestation of this snowballing political energy.
No social movement should be idealized, however. AMLO’s movement in Mexico City, which will continue through a democratic convention on September 15th, where they will formulate the next plan of action, even declare his legitimacy by popular mandate, is in the end, another man’s quest for power in a political context. Nevertheless, AMLO is preferable to conservative Calderon, who will follow Fox’s trajectory of policy that helps the wealthy and supports the United State’s neo-liberal political program, which has been detrimental to the rural and urban poor of Mexico.
The fact that Mexican citizens and international supporters have kept up their fight through the hot, smoggy, city summer and show no signs of going home, is inspiring. It is something that we could all learn from.
