Mexican democracy has been raped, again. In the elections last July, the citizens of the Aztec country voted for Andres Lopez Obrador and got Felipe Calderon instead.
Massive protests immediately emerged and Lopez Obrador urged his followers to be patient and not resort to violence and they listened.
He promised that the electoral tribunals would recount each vote and that justice would be served. He was wrong. Four months later, Calderon forced himself to office. But he did it in a very unusual way, entering through the back door and with half of Congress whistling and screaming fraud.
He could not enter through the main door because hundreds of lawmakers had blocked the entrance by building barricades with chairs. For three days the government unsuccessfully attempted to get Calderon inside the Congress building.
In a desperate attempt, former President Vicente Fox gave the flag to Calderon in a midnight television transmission.
Fox then he said he was not going to be present for Calderon’s swearing into office ceremony since he had already given him the flag the night before.
The Mexican media sided with the Mexican government by choosing to omit the images of national protesters, who flooded the streets to show their discontent.
It is clear what Mexico awaits now, for Mexico and it is not a very prosperous future. Mexico will undergo another term full of poverty, corruption and something that Mexico liberated many years ago, fanatical Catholicism.
Karina Ceja, Chicano Studies major, said she thinks that it was a clear fraud by the Mexican government, which felt that Lopez Obrador and his socialist views were a threat to Mexico’s ruling power. “(Lopez) Obrador always sided with the poor people and that’s why he won,” Ceja said.
Omar Gonzalez, MEChA member, said he thinks that Calderon’s party violated electoral laws. “It’s in the U.S. interest to have the Calderon party in power,” Gonzalez said. He states they are pro-globalization and Lopez Obrador wanted to nationalize lots of industries that have foreign ownership.
One can hope that Calderon would do a better job under the pressure of a divided congress and country, I doubt it since he has shown no dignity by assuming a position of power when he is disliked by tens of thousands of Mexicans.
The ideal solution would be to have Calderon leave the way he came, through the back door and as quickly as possible. Realistically speaking, though, this willnot happen.
Having a national recount instead of recount in certain states would solve the problem. At the end, Lopez Obrador said that if each vote was recounted and he was found to be the loser he would take his lost with dignity.
