Supporters of leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador targeted federal offices in escalating protests over allegations of electoral fraud, as officials started a partial recount of votes from last month's disputed presidential election.
On Tuesday, hundreds of activists blockaded the entrance to the Agriculture Department and forced open highway toll booths for cars to stream through free-of-charge during rush hour -- the latest in a wave of protests to demand a total recount of the presidential election.
Lopez Obrador was the runner-up in an official count that gave ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon an advantage of 0.6 percent, or about 240,000 votes.
PHOTO: AP
The protests will continue all week, Lopez Obrador said, culminating in what he called an "extraordinary rally" in Mexico City on Sunday, the day officials are expected to finish recounting votes in about 9 percent of the nation's polling places.
"We are going to carry on our struggle ... We are sure we will triumph," the silvery haired leftist told tens of thousands of supporters in the capital's central plaza on Tuesday night.
Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, is demanding that officials count all 41 million ballots, but a tribunal said that they will only review votes in places where there is evidence the ballots could have been miscounted. The partial recount started yesterday.
While Lopez Obrador has urged his followers to remain peaceful, tensions are growing and some fear that he may not be able to prevent the demonstrations from erupting in violence.
The seizure of the toll booths, which gave more than 7,000 motorists a free passage to the capital, prompted President Vicente Fox's spokesman, Ruben Aguilar, to threaten for the first time the use of force. But demonstrators backed off before that could happen, abandoning the booths shortly after the end of morning rush hour.
Fox criticized the protests saying, "Democracy cannot advance without respect for others and above all without respect for institutions."
Late on Tuesday, the federal attorney general's office opened up a criminal investigation into the seizures, according to Mexican media. Officials at the agency could not immediately be reached.
An official in Lopez Obrador's leftist Democratic Revolution Party said the occupying of toll booths was the start of a new type of protest that would take place across the nation.
"Until now we have concentrated an important part of our protests in the capital, but in this new stage we are going to carry out actions all over the country," party secretary-general Guadalupe Acosta said. "They will be coordinated, national actions with the same objective: that they open the boxes and count the votes."
The Agriculture Department in Mexico City was bockaded on Tuesday by demonstrations for more than six hours.
Lopez Obrador supporters who gathered in front of the nation's top electoral court on Monday night raised their fists in defiance.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) launched a week-long diplomatic blitz of South America on Thursday by inaugurating a massive deep-water port in Peru, a US$1.3 billion investment by Beijing as it seeks to expand trade and influence on the continent. With China’s demand for agricultural goods and metals from Latin America growing, Xi will participate in the APEC summit in Lima then head to the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week, where he will also make a state visit to Brazil. Xi and Peruvian President Dina Boluarte participated on Thursday by video link in the opening
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
‘HUGS NOT WORKING’: Ken Salazar said that the bodies of people killed by violence ‘can be seen everywhere’ and that the nation’s leaders were downplaying the issue Mexico failed to accept aid in its fight against drug cartels and “closed the doors” on security cooperation with Washington, US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar told a news conference in Mexico City on Wednesday. Salazar said there was rampant violence, police corruption and that the Mexican government had the mistaken attitude that “there is no problem.” “When they just say: ‘There is no problem, we have these statistics to show people there is no problem,’ that is not based on reality,” Salazar said. “There is a very big problem.” Mexico sent a diplomatic note to the US embassy “expressing its surprise” at