Political foes deny Fox podium - Mexican leader can't deliver yearly report

Political foes deny Fox podium - Mexican leader can't deliver yearly report
By Colin McMahon
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published September 2, 2006


MEXICO CITY -- Facing the threat of an ugly confrontation with opposition congressmen, President Vicente Fox abandoned his reading of his state of the nation speech Friday before the Mexican Congress, breaking a tradition dating back 180 years.

"Given that the posture of a group of legislators makes it impossible to read the message I have prepared for this occasion, I am leaving the hall," Fox announced after delivering a written version of the annual presidential report, called the informe.

Half an hour earlier, legislators from the Democratic Revolution Party had swarmed the congressional stage. They waved anti-Fox posters and the tri-colored national flag, chanting "Mexico! Mexico!" And a leading senator from the party stood at the podium, refusing to yield.

"Deliver it and go," the protesting congressmen shouted.

The gambit worked. But it also showed Mexicans, again, how fractured their political system has become.


Election still disputed

The Democratic Revolution Party and its leftist allies accuse Fox of illegally torpedoing their candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in the July 2 presidential election. They refuse to accept official results showing that Felipe Calderon of Fox's National Action Party won.

They consider Fox, as their signs of protest said Friday, a "traitor to democracy."

"Vicente Fox has turned the country into a powder keg," said Ricardo Cantu Garza of the Workers Party in one of several anti-Fox speeches that preceded the fireworks of Fox's arrival. "He never fulfilled a democratic reform of the Mexican state, nor strengthened its institutions. ... On the contrary, they are now submerged in the worst crisis of their history."

Though street protesters loyal to Lopez Obrador had sought to block Fox from reaching Congress, the president arrived safely at the legislative palace in a line of armored SUVs.

Late by almost 20 minutes but waving for the television cameras, Fox entered the building as legislators from his National Action Party chanted "Vicente! Vicente!"

Once inside the vestibule, however, the president stood down. Rather than challenge the opposition legislators on the stage, Fox bowed to the wishes of many congressmen even in his own party that he not further inflame the country's political conflict.

He handed over the informe and announced his departure.

"The PRD showed its arbitrary and anti-democratic face," said Sen. Santiago Creel of the National Action Party, referring to the Democratic Revolution Party by its Spanish acronym. "It would have been easy to respond. ... But the PRD was turning this hall into a circus. We are not going to join in a circus."

In turning in a written version of the informe, Fox fulfilled his obligation under the constitution, which demands that at the opening of each annual congressional session the president present a written summation of the state of the nation.


Topic of hot debate

But in failing to read that informe to legislators, Fox became the first Mexican president in 80 years to depart from a tradition that began in 1825.

The question of whether Fox would, could, should or had to make the speech was debated all week.

Legal scholars weighed in on exactly what the constitution demanded. Average Mexicans, many of whom normally show little interest in the informe, were debating tactics and options as if the congressional session were a sporting event.

Mexicans hardly needed more evidence of the severity of their political crisis. Street closings and other protests around Mexico City have lengthened commutes, disrupted businesses and idled workers.

Public confidence in legislators and political parties has sunk to an all-time low, according to a survey this week in the Mexico City daily Reforma.

Amid all this, the thousands of die-hard protesters who are intensely loyal to Lopez Obrador say they are not going away.

They refuse to accept the official results of the July 2 vote. And if the nation's highest electoral court ratifies Calderon's victory next week, as expected, Lopez Obrador supporters vow not to recognize the new president and instead construct a parallel government.

The events Friday showed how far apart are the competing views of Mexico and its incipient democracy. Lopez Obrador's supporters say they are fighting for democracy and that their blocking of Fox's speech was a legitimate part of the fight.

Yet in that same speech, which Fox recorded and aired over national television later Friday, the president used the word "democracy" dozens of times.

"Democracy is synonymous with liberty, and, today, Mexico lives in a true system of liberties," Fox said in the last informe of his six-year term. "Today, democracy is the verb and the noun of national life."

While that message was being aired, the halls of Congress Fox had just abandoned were finally emptying out. And the leaders of the various parties were talking to the cameras, making their case for democracy.

----------

cmcmahon@tribune.com