As Mexico Awaits Judges' Ruling, The Writing Is On The Wall And In The
Streets:

AMLO Presidente!

John Ross, CounterPunch

MEXICO CITY — The day before Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), the
peppery left leader who insists he is the winner of the July 2 election
here, summoned over a million Mexicans to the great Zocalo plaza to lay
out plans for civil resistance to prevent right-winger Felipe Calderon
from stealing the presidency, this reporter marched down from
neighboring Morelos state with a group of weather-beaten campesinos the
color of the earth.

Saul Franco and his companeros farmed plots in the village of
Anenecuilco, the hometown of revolutionary Emiliano Zapata who gave his
life to defend the community's land from the big hacienda owners. "It
is our obligation to fix this fraud and kick the rich out of power,"
Saul explained. "If Zapata was still alive he would be with us today"
the 52 year-old farmer insisted, echoing the sentiment on the
hand-lettered cardboard sign he carried.

But although Saul and his companions admired and supported Lopez
Obrador, they were not so happy with AMLO's party, the Party of the
Democratic Revolution or PRD. "We had a PRD mayor and things went badly
and we lost the next time around," remembered Pedro, Saul's cousin.
Indeed, many PRD candidates are just made-over members of the
once-ruling (71 years) Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI that
have climbed on Lopez Obrador's coattails to win public office. In 57
per cent of all elections the PRD has won, the party has subsequently
failed to win reelection.Yet the farmers drew a clear distinction between AMLO's "Party of the
Aztec Sun" and Lopez Obrador himself. "Andres Manuel will never
surrender. He is decided. He will never double-cross us or sell us
out." Saul was adamant.

It is that aura of dedication and combativeness and the belief that, in
contrast with other leaders that have risen from the Mexican left, that
AMLO cannot be bought or co-opted, that helped draw 1.1 million (police
estimates) or 1.5 million (PRD estimates) Mexicans to the Zocalo, the
political heart of the nation, July 16.

The numbers of those in attendance — the line of march extended for 13
kilometers and moved continuously for five hours — are integral to
AMLO's notion that these are historic moments for Mexico and only by
impressing this understanding upon the seven judge electoral tribunal
(TRIFE) that must decide who won the fiercely-contested July 2 election,
will the panel order the opening of all 130,000 ballot boxes and allow a
vote by vote recount.

Lopez Obrador is convinced that he has won the presidency of Mexico from
his right-wing rival Felipe Calderon of the National Action (PAN) Party
who was awarded a 243,000-vote margin by the Federal Electoral Institute
(IFE) on the basis of what now appear to be manipulated computer
tallies.

The July 16 outpouring may not have been the largest political
demonstration in Mexican history. In April 2005, AMLO himself put 1.2
million citizens into the streets of Mexico City to protest efforts by
President Vicente Fox, a PANista like Calderon, to exclude him from the
ballot. But what is most important in this numbers game is not how many
were turned out at each event but the exponential growth of the
gatherings. Back in 2005, AMLO called a rally in the Zocalo that drew
325,000 supporters. Two weeks later, he tripled the size of the
turnout, forcing Fox to drop his scheme to prevent Lopez Obrador from
running for president.

Six days after the July 2 election, AMLO summoned a half million to an
"informative assembly" in the vast Tiennemens-sized plaza and once
again, if the PRD figures are to be accepted, tripled participation last
Sunday. He is now calling for a third "informative assembly" July 30
which, given the statistical trend, should settle the question of which
is the largest mass demonstration in Mexican political history.

The PAN and its now-ex-candidate Calderon consider these enormous
numbers to be "irrelevant." That's how PAN secretary Cesar Nava labeled
them.

What AMLO's enemies — Fox, Calderon, the PAN, the now dilapidated PRI,
the Catholic Church, the Media, Mexico's avaricious business class, and
the Bushites in Washington — do not get yet is that every time they
level a blow at the scrappy "Peje" (for Pejelagarto, a gar-like fish
from the swamps of AMLO's native Tabasco) his popularity grows by leaps
and bounds. The perception that, despite the vicious attacks of his
opponents, he will never sell out is Lopez Obrador's strongest suit —
and he is always at the peak of his game when leading massive street
protests.

Two weeks after the election that Felipe Calderon continues to claim he
won, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is the pivotal figure in Mexican
politics, dominating public discourse and even the media, which has so
brutally excoriated and excluded him for years. Meanwhile, the PANista
spends his days accepting congratulations from the world's most
prominent right-wingers including George Bush, an electoral pickpocket
who is popularly thought to have stolen the U.S. presidency in 2000 and
2004, and Bush's Senate majority leader Bill Frist, in addition to Bush
poodle Tony Blair and Spain's former Francisco Franco clone prime
minister Jose Maria Aznar.

Calderon also enjoys the approbation of such U.S. right-wingers as Fox
News commentator Dick Morris (a campaign consultant), the Miami Herald's
decrepid Latin America "expert" Andres Oppenheimer, and Ginger Thompson,
the Condoleezza Rice of the New York Times whose estimates of crowd
sizes missed the mark by a million marchers July 16. Virtually every
radio and television outlet in Mexico has endorsed Calderon's purported
victory. Televisa, the largest communication conglomerate in Latin
America, which dominates the Mexican dial, refused to provide live
coverage of the July 16 rally.

Although Felipe Calderon has announced his intentions of touring Mexico
to thank voters for his disputed "triumph", insiders report that the PAN
brain trust has strongly advised against it, fearing that such a tour
could trigger violent confrontations with AMLO supporters.

At this point, 16 days after the election, it is difficult to imagine
how Calderon could govern Mexico if the TRIFE denies a recount and
accepts the IFE numbers. A Calderon presidency would inherit a country
divided in half geographically between north and south. Both the PAN and
the PRD won 16 states a piece although AMLO's turf contains 54 per cent
of the population and most of Mexico's 70 million poor — an angry
majority that will refuse to accept the legitimacy of a Calderon
presidency for the next six years. Faced with a similar situation after
he stole the 1988 election from leftist Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, Carlos
Salinas had to call out the army.

Lopez Obrador has encouraged his supporters to reinforce encampments
outside the nation's 300 electoral districts to prevent the IFE from
tampering with ballot boxes while the judges sort through the 53,000
allegations of polling place violations filed by AMLO's legal team — the
PRD charges that the IFE has already violated 40 per cent of the boxes
in a ploy to match ballot totals to its highly dubious computer count.
The leftist's call for peaceful mass civil resistance is bound to keep
this nation's teeth on edge until a judicial determination is reached in
respect to a recount. A new president must be designated by September
6.

Although tensions are running high, the country has been remarkably
violence free since July 2 but s decision by the tribunal to uphold the
IFE results could well be the point of combustion. Even should a
recount be ordered who will do the counting given the vehement distrust
of the Federal Electoral Institute by AMLO's supporters is a potential
flashpoint for trouble. Historically, when the electoral option has
been canceled as a means of social change by vote fraud, the armed
option gains adherents in Mexico.

Despite AMLO's talents at exciting mass resistance and the number of
times he can fill the Zocalo to bursting, the only numbers that really
count are those inside the nation's 130,000 ballot boxes. Will the
justices satisfy Lopez Obrador's demand for a vote-by-vote recount? All
seven judges are in their final year on the TRIFE bench and at least
three members are candidates to move up to the Supreme Court in the next
administration. In the past, the judges, who decide by majority
opinion, have been quite independent of political pressures, ordering
annulments and recounts in two gubernatorial elections and in whole
electoral districts — but have never done so in a presidential election.
Forcing that historical precedent is what Lopez Obrador's call for mass
mobilizations is all about.

If AMLO's foes are counting on a long, drawn-out legal tussle that will
discourage the faithful and eventually reduce his support to a handful
of diehard losers, they have grievously miscalculated the energy and
breadth of the leftist's crusade to clean up the 2006 election. This
past weekend, as this senior citizen trudged the highway down from
Zapata country to the big city, two police officers lounging outside the
highway tollbooths gently patted me on the back and urged me on.
"Animo!" they encouraged, "keep up the spirit!"

When even the cops are in solidarity with Lopez Obrador's fight for
electoral justice, the writing is on the wall for Calderon and his
right-wing confederates. Indeed, the wall of the old stone convent
around the corner from my rooms here in the old quarter says it quite
clearly: "AMLO PRESIDENTE!"

[John Ross's Zapatistas! Making Another World Possible — Chronicles of
Resistance 2000–2006" will be published by Nation Books this October.]