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Lopez Obrador suspends downtown Mexico City protests
AFP
MEXICO CITY
Petroleumworld.com 09 11 06
Leftist opposition leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced Sunday that he was temporarily ending a mass protest over disputed election results that had paralyzed much of downtown Mexico City since July 30.
Lopez Obrador, who officially lost the July 2 election by a razor-thin margin to president-elect Felipe Calderon, said the protest would be lifted to allow the popular September 16 independence day military parade to proceed.
The protest has "nothing against" the military, an "institution that guarantees our sovereignty," he told a downtown gathering of thousands of supporters.
However, in a challenge to outgoing President Vicente Fox, Lopez Obrador vowed to deliver a rival ceremonial public call for independence late September 15 at the Zocalo, the giant downtown square where the protests are centered.
The re-enactment ceremony is traditionally delivered each year at the Zocalo by the sitting president.
Lopez Obrador, 52, insists that he is the rightful leader of Mexico, and this week rejected Calderon as an "illegitimate president" responsible for a "coup d'etat" which he said was sending "Mexico's institutions to hell."
At about the same time Calderon, a member of Fox's conservative National Action Party (PAN), spoke to a rally of tens of thousands at the Mexico City bullfighting ring, the largest in the world. It was the first mass rally since he was confirmed as the country's next president.
Calderon, 44, called on all Mexicans, "including my opponents, to join in the fight against poverty and public insecurity."
He then called on his supporters to put aside the past and focus on "reconciliation and tolerance" instead.
"The confrontation is behind us, it ended on July 2," Calderon said.
"The Mexico that won was the Mexico of the institutions, on July 2 democracy won," said Calderon, taking a swipe at Lopez Obrador, who refuses to recognize the vote results.
The vote result has been one of the most bitterly contested elections in Mexican history. On Tuesday, the Federal Electoral Tribunal named Calderon as the next president in a decision that cannot be appealed.
Since the July 2 election, which Calderon won by a scant 0.56 percent, Lopez Obrador has lived in a tent city with backers of his Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and kept up a campaign of civil disobedience, blocking traffic and protesting in the capital.
The final vote tally gave Calderon, Fox's former energy minister, a mere 233,831 vote advantage over Lopez Obrador.
The leftist former Mexico City mayor and his supporters say the election was marred by fraud.
Since late July thousands of Lopez Obrador sympathizers have camped out on the Paseo de la Reforma, one of the city's most important thoroughfares and the route of the annual military parade.
AFP 10 2028 GMT 09 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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