Does AMLO Have a Future? - The Final Chapter in Mexico (for Now)

[pberq]

It appears that Obrador won another victory last week in Mexico. This is what popular resistance can do!

http://www.counterpunch.org/ross09202006.html

September 20, 2006
Does AMLO Have a Future?
The Final Chapter in Mexico (for Now)

By JOHN ROSS

Mexico City.

<snip>
When we last left leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), recently robbed of the Mexican presidency by the usual fraud, he was eyeball to eyeball in the great Zocalo plaza of Mexico City where his supporters had been camped out since the July 2 election, with Vicente Fox, the former President of Coca Cola Mexico and the outgoing president of this very polarized republic staring down his throat.

At the core of their discord was who would declaim the time-honored "Grito" of Independence this past September 15, the eve of the 196th anniversary of the beginning of Mexico's war to free itself from the Spanish Crown and the maximum patriotic moment in this nation's year. By imperial fiat, the Grito is the property of the sitting president who installed on a balcony of the National Palace makes a big show of the rebel yell uttered by Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the defrocked priest of Dolores Hidalgo in Fox's home state of Guanajuato, who on September 16, 1810 (the time of day is disputed) had clanged the church bells to summon the black and brown underclass of the region to rise up against the "Gachupin" (Spanish but literally "spur-rider") owned hacienda of Dolores. "Viva Mexico!" the excommunicated priest and father of many children, harangued the seething crowd, declaring the nation's independence from the Crown, "let's go string up some Gachupines."

(much, much more at link. . .)

[Lisa0825]

1. I'm only halfway through the article, but

I had to come back here to recommend it! Thanks for posting!

[Adelante]

2. What victory do you mean?

AMLO and Fox cut a deal. Fox would give the grito in Dolores Hidalgo and AMLO would not give the grito in Mexico City. And that's what took place. No victory here for either side, just a deal.

[pberq]

3. According to John Ross, who wrote the article

". . .the resistance sent him (Fox) packing. . ."
Hardly sounds like a deal to me - more like Fox was forced agaionst his will to deliver the Grito elsewhere.

http://www.counterpunch.org/ross09202006.html
<snip>
"Two weeks after AMLO's congressional delegation prevented Vicente Fox from presenting his final Informe to the nation, the growing civil resistance had sent him packing to another palace, cracked comedienne Jesusa Rodriguez, the mc of AMLO's nightly "informative assemblies", "the Palacio of Hierro", a high end department store, so that first lady Martita could get in a little shopping."

[Adelante]

4. Then John Ross is wrong

Fox proposed the deal himself. It was presented by Santiago Creel to the tribunal of the Senate. The Senators negotiated with the PRD and AMLO agreed, I guess for his own reasons. The third part of the deal I forgot to mention was that AMLO would take down the encampments in the Zocalo permanently following the convention, which he did. It was in the Mexican newspapers, a few of them. I'll see if I can find a link for you.

[Adelante]

5. This is all I can find

It's an AP report that seems to be based on what I read. I tried to find the original reports, I think they were in La Jornada and Reforma, but I couldn't, sorry.

MEXICO CITY — Supporters of leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Friday ended the street protest that clogged the heart of the capital for nearly seven weeks, but they vowed to find other ways to resist the incoming conservative president. The announcement of the end of the protest camps came a day after President Vicente Fox decided to move Friday night’s annual independence celebration away from the main square to avoid the protesters. The president moved the ceremony to the city of Dolores Hidalgo, 170 miles away.

Mexican media quoted Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal as saying the feuding parties had struck a deal — Fox agreed to relocate the celebration in exchange for López Obrador supporters dismantling their protest camp.

-snip

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17206109&BRD=2290&PAG=461&dept_id=569392&rfi=6

In addition to what is quoted, the reports I read said it was required that Encinas give the Mexico City grito and not AMLO.