MEXICO: Vote recount begins as thousands protest outside foreign banks

Hundreds of Mexican leftists blocked the offices of three major foreign-owned banks on Wednesday (August 9) in growing protests to force a full recount of a July presidential election they claim was rigged. Supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador surrounded main offices in Mexico City of U.S.-based Citigroup's Mexican unit Banamex, the Bancomer bank owned by Spain's BBVA and the British giant HSBC. They sat on the ground around the buildings and vowed to block access for several hours. Lopez Obrador narrowly lost the presidential vote to conservative ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon and claims it was rigged. Election officials began a recount of votes from 9 percent of polling stations on Wednesday (August 9) in a bid to clear up the allegations and calm a crisis that has split the country. But Lopez Obrador is demanding a full recount of all 41 million votes. His protesters have crippled Mexico City for the past 10 days by setting up tents in its Zocalo square and on the Reforma boulevard running through the business district. People on the street reflected the divide in this Latin American country, with Laura Sanchez sympathizing with the protest. "It's a just cause," she said. But Jadira Rojas disagreed, saying he was sick of the protests. "I have had it up to here that they violate my right to walk, to go to work and do my things, simply because I don't think like them. I am not in agreement and I'm sick of it," he said. Laura countered that she too was sick of many things. "I also have had it up to here with so many injustices, so much illegality, so many worn out institutions, we have had it up to here with all of that," she said, but Rojas refused to let it pass. "You really are to be pitied, my friend. I'm sorry, you make more working than with this. I come from the lower classes, I'm not rich," she explained. The protests had a nationalist tinge. Demonstrators draped a banner in Mexico's red, white and green colors over the front entrance to a large Banamex office in the Spanish colonial center of the capital. But PRD leader Marti Batres said that the banks had a role to play in what he termed the "dirty war" against Lopez Obrador. "The financial centres are sensitive points, and we want to call attention with enough force, so yesterday we were in the toll booths, we let people enter and leave freely, without paying the toll on the highways, and now we are in the main financial centres. It's fitting to say that some of these financial centres involved themselves actively in the dirty war against Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador," he said. 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. During the election campaign, Lopez Obrador had promised to reopen the books on a controversial $100 billion bailout of struggling private banks by the government during an economic crisis in the mid-1990s. Judges, election officials and party representatives will spend up to five days checking the tallies at 11,839 voting stations to see if there is truth to Lopez Obrador's claims that he was cheated in the July 2 election. The recount at a center in Mexico City guarded by soldiers was painfully slow with PRD representatives asking court actuaries to note every detail of proceedings. It took about an hour to tally a few hundred votes in front of a judge. A leftist official videotaped the recount. If the partial recounts show Lopez Obrador closing the gap on Calderon, they could force the electoral court to open more ballot boxes. If there is no 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 fraud-tainted elections. Despite fiery rhetoric and growing tension, there has been no violence at any of the protests and Lopez Obrador insists his campaign will remain peaceful. The government has tightened Fox's personal security this week and also sent federal police to protect oil installations and the capital's international airport. Calderon's margin of victory was about 244,000 votes, or just 0.58 percentage points, but he insists it was clean. His team accuses Lopez Obrador of using Mexico's class divide to try to win on the streets what they lost at the polls.

ITN Source | August 10, 2006

Tags:. .calm. .corruption. .cheated. .vowed. .gap