September 6, 2006
Adios, To the Fox! Death of the Mexican Presidency By JOHN ROSS
Mexico City.
The tableau of 155 leftist deputies and senators storming the tribune of congress here September 1 to prevent President Vicente Fox from delivering his sixth and final State of the Union address (the "Informe") should be mandatory viewing for members of both houses of the U.S. Congress who, year after year, burst into servile applause for George Bush when each January he imposes his own infernal Informe upon the citizens of Gringolandia.
One crucial political distinction between these two distant neighbor nations is the presence of a third party in the Mexican mix, one that at least purports to be left of the center. Swindled out of the presidency by fraud this past July 2, the party of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO)-- the Party of the Democratic Revolution or PRD--appears to have broken with the political class and traditional cronyism.
It is not that the PRD's hands are clean its legislators have regularly prostituted their wares - but in the wake of the stolen election and having been frozen out of any power positions in the brand-new congress despite being Mexico's second political force, the Party of AMLO has little to lose, and is suddenly speaking its truth to power, a singular position for any politico right or left.
Despite rampant corruption, regular vote stealing, and authoritarian tendencies, Mexico's multi-party system makes U.S. "democracy" with its two-headed single party rule, look a lot more like Idi Amin's Uganda than what the Boston tea party had in mind for the future citizens of the United States of North America.
The spectacle of elected officials being pissed off enough to stare down tin-plate potentates like President Vicente Fox topped off weeks of scuffling in and around the 10 kilometer steel wall Mexican troops had thrown up around the Legislative Palace to keep Lopez Obrador's die-hard supporters from congregating in shouting distance of the congress of the country. On the government side of the barricade, 6000 preventative police (drawn from the military) and Fox's own presidential guard or the Estado Mayor had turned the congressional precinct into a war zone. One side in this standoff was equipped with clubs, electric shields, tear gas, water cannons, light tanks, live ammunition, and snipers up on the rooftops. The other only with its dreams and its "coraje" (righteous anger.) Guess which side won?
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