Vote or no vote, Mexicans are fighting back
By Dante Strobino
Mexico City
While the contested presidential election in Mexico remains the focus of intense struggle, accumulated social conflicts continue to go unresolved.
The teachers’ union in Oaxaca, along with hundreds of thousands of supporters, continues to fight back.
Flower merchants and supporters in Atenco who refuse to leave their market so Wal-Mart can build a store there are raped, killed and imprisoned.
Some 65 miners in the Pasta coal mines of Conchos, Coahuila, are killed due to unsafe conditions ignored by Secretary of Labor Francisco Salazar. Workers in Sonora shut down the nation’s largest copper mines. And workers at the Villacero steel plant, Latin America’s largest steel bar manufacturer, continue their four-month strike.
Although the votes were cast on July 2, as of July 10 there was still no clear winner in the presidential race. The Federal Electoral Institute’s (IFE) official count on July 6 gave right-wing National Action Party (PAN) candidate Felipe Calderón a 0.57 percent lead over the left-leaning advocate of the poor, Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador. This razor-thin margin is being contested by López Obrador.
There is a long history of fraud in Mexi can elections. While usually perpetrated by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), it is now the PAN that has stacked the IFE in its favor. IFE President Luis Carlos Ugalde has admitted that 2.6 million votes were not included in the preliminary count because of “inconsistencies.”
The people are very conscious of all this and are taking things into their own hands in some locations. Teachers in Oaxaca claimed fraud on election day and detained an election official in his hotel. (La Jornada, July 3) Others in Atenco burnt their election cards and party propaganda to protest the election.
Who are López Obrador & the PRD?
López Obrador, if elected, would be a progressive step forward for Mexico, but it remains to be seen if he will be more in line with Brazil’s President Lula Da Silva and Chile’s Michelle Bachelet or with the policies and practices of Venezuela’s Presi dent Hugo Chávez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales.
Running as a candidate of the Alliance for the Good of All, a coalition that includes the PRD, the Workers Party and Con ver gence, López Obrador is willing to work with the left. When he was chair of the PRD, most of the 26 members of his cabinet had, at some time in the past, been members of either Trotskyist, Maoist or other Marxist, left-wing parties. As mayor of Mexico City, his cabinet was composed of 50 percent women. He promises to do the same if elected president. The PRD was the first party ever to have a woman elected mayor.
At López Obrador’s final campaign rally in Mexico City’s historic town square, the Zócalo, over 150,000 people tightly packed the streets. The working-class character of his party was obvious as peasants, national unions, Indigenous and youth gathered around to listen. Cald erón’s rally, by contrast, was held in the expensive Azteca Stadium and attracted middle- and ruling-class Mexicans.
This truly was a class vote.
Let the people decide
Five days before the election, the National Coordinator of Educational Workers (CNTE), Local 22, of Oaxaca met with union officials to hand in 150,000 signatures demanding cost-of-living salary adjustments and the resignation of notorious PRI Gov. Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. Upon leaving the meeting, the CNTE marched through the streets of downtown Mexico City with thousands of supporters.
The next day, Local 22 initiated a nationwide general strike with the support of several other major unions. The strike was called off, however, in order not to disrupt the elections, and instead the fourth mega-march in four weeks occurred. “The government is doing everything they can to repress our strength at this important moment for the bourgeois parties, but we refuse to be quieted and continue to organize around our demands,” a teacher in Local 22 told Workers World.
Two days before the election, the Zapatistas held the Third National Assem bly for adherents of the “Other Campaign.” About 1,200 people gathered from all over the country. Subcommander Marcos said little but served as emcee as students, Indigenous, women, workers, migrants, sex workers, self-identified queers, lesbians, transgender people, and representatives from the U.S. made suggestions about the movement’s direction after the election. Many emphasized the struggle to free some 30 political prisoners from Atenco being held in Santiaguito Prison and La Palma Maximum Security Unit. Suppor ters have maintained a demonstration outside the prison since their incarceration on May 4.
On election day, instead of waiting in the voting lines, the Zapatistas continued with their “Other Campaign.” Over 60,000 supporters marched through downtown Mexico City voicing their opposition and chanting “Assassins! Rapists!” at the cops who ringed the city’s monuments.
None of the presidential candidates “offer a just or urgent solution for the liberation of our 30 detained comrades from Atenco, San Salvador,” an indigenous Zapatista woman from Chiapas told Workers World, “For this, the choice is not between voting and not voting, our only option is to organize from the ground up and to the left.”
The people are in the streets protesting election fraud in several locations, particularly in Guanajuata, Queretaro and Tabasco. López Obrador on July 10, in a mass rally organized to defend the vote, called for the people to march from all over the country into Mexico City to hold on-going protests and demand a recount.
Earlier, he had employed similar tactics when the right tried to use a technicality to prevent him from becoming a candidate for president. The presence of over 2 million people in the streets threatened the big bankers’ stability and López Obrador eventually beat back this political challenge.
At press time 3 million people from all over Mexico are heading to the capital city for a rally on July 16 in solidarity with the PRD
Mexico City
While the contested presidential election in Mexico remains the focus of intense struggle, accumulated social conflicts continue to go unresolved.
The teachers’ union in Oaxaca, along with hundreds of thousands of supporters, continues to fight back.
Flower merchants and supporters in Atenco who refuse to leave their market so Wal-Mart can build a store there are raped, killed and imprisoned.
Some 65 miners in the Pasta coal mines of Conchos, Coahuila, are killed due to unsafe conditions ignored by Secretary of Labor Francisco Salazar. Workers in Sonora shut down the nation’s largest copper mines. And workers at the Villacero steel plant, Latin America’s largest steel bar manufacturer, continue their four-month strike.
Although the votes were cast on July 2, as of July 10 there was still no clear winner in the presidential race. The Federal Electoral Institute’s (IFE) official count on July 6 gave right-wing National Action Party (PAN) candidate Felipe Calderón a 0.57 percent lead over the left-leaning advocate of the poor, Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador. This razor-thin margin is being contested by López Obrador.
There is a long history of fraud in Mexi can elections. While usually perpetrated by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), it is now the PAN that has stacked the IFE in its favor. IFE President Luis Carlos Ugalde has admitted that 2.6 million votes were not included in the preliminary count because of “inconsistencies.”
The people are very conscious of all this and are taking things into their own hands in some locations. Teachers in Oaxaca claimed fraud on election day and detained an election official in his hotel. (La Jornada, July 3) Others in Atenco burnt their election cards and party propaganda to protest the election.
Who are López Obrador & the PRD?
López Obrador, if elected, would be a progressive step forward for Mexico, but it remains to be seen if he will be more in line with Brazil’s President Lula Da Silva and Chile’s Michelle Bachelet or with the policies and practices of Venezuela’s Presi dent Hugo Chávez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales.
Running as a candidate of the Alliance for the Good of All, a coalition that includes the PRD, the Workers Party and Con ver gence, López Obrador is willing to work with the left. When he was chair of the PRD, most of the 26 members of his cabinet had, at some time in the past, been members of either Trotskyist, Maoist or other Marxist, left-wing parties. As mayor of Mexico City, his cabinet was composed of 50 percent women. He promises to do the same if elected president. The PRD was the first party ever to have a woman elected mayor.
At López Obrador’s final campaign rally in Mexico City’s historic town square, the Zócalo, over 150,000 people tightly packed the streets. The working-class character of his party was obvious as peasants, national unions, Indigenous and youth gathered around to listen. Cald erón’s rally, by contrast, was held in the expensive Azteca Stadium and attracted middle- and ruling-class Mexicans.
This truly was a class vote.
Let the people decide
Five days before the election, the National Coordinator of Educational Workers (CNTE), Local 22, of Oaxaca met with union officials to hand in 150,000 signatures demanding cost-of-living salary adjustments and the resignation of notorious PRI Gov. Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. Upon leaving the meeting, the CNTE marched through the streets of downtown Mexico City with thousands of supporters.
The next day, Local 22 initiated a nationwide general strike with the support of several other major unions. The strike was called off, however, in order not to disrupt the elections, and instead the fourth mega-march in four weeks occurred. “The government is doing everything they can to repress our strength at this important moment for the bourgeois parties, but we refuse to be quieted and continue to organize around our demands,” a teacher in Local 22 told Workers World.
Two days before the election, the Zapatistas held the Third National Assem bly for adherents of the “Other Campaign.” About 1,200 people gathered from all over the country. Subcommander Marcos said little but served as emcee as students, Indigenous, women, workers, migrants, sex workers, self-identified queers, lesbians, transgender people, and representatives from the U.S. made suggestions about the movement’s direction after the election. Many emphasized the struggle to free some 30 political prisoners from Atenco being held in Santiaguito Prison and La Palma Maximum Security Unit. Suppor ters have maintained a demonstration outside the prison since their incarceration on May 4.
On election day, instead of waiting in the voting lines, the Zapatistas continued with their “Other Campaign.” Over 60,000 supporters marched through downtown Mexico City voicing their opposition and chanting “Assassins! Rapists!” at the cops who ringed the city’s monuments.
None of the presidential candidates “offer a just or urgent solution for the liberation of our 30 detained comrades from Atenco, San Salvador,” an indigenous Zapatista woman from Chiapas told Workers World, “For this, the choice is not between voting and not voting, our only option is to organize from the ground up and to the left.”
The people are in the streets protesting election fraud in several locations, particularly in Guanajuata, Queretaro and Tabasco. López Obrador on July 10, in a mass rally organized to defend the vote, called for the people to march from all over the country into Mexico City to hold on-going protests and demand a recount.
Earlier, he had employed similar tactics when the right tried to use a technicality to prevent him from becoming a candidate for president. The presence of over 2 million people in the streets threatened the big bankers’ stability and López Obrador eventually beat back this political challenge.
At press time 3 million people from all over Mexico are heading to the capital city for a rally on July 16 in solidarity with the PRD
posted by FIST at 14:37
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