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2006-11-21 Caribbean-Latin America
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Yes, He Lost Mexicos Vote, So Hes Swearing Himself In
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MEXICO CITY Don Quixote, move over. The losing leftist candidate for president swore himself in on Monday as the legitimate president of Mexico before a huge crowd of his avid fans, ignoring rulings by federal electoral authorities and the courts that he narrowly lost the election last July.
The candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who took on Mexicos entrenched oligarchy, chose the anniversary of the Mexican revolution for the event. He has continued to assert that his opponents used fraud to deny him victory.
Appearing on a stage in the historic Constitution Plaza, with Mexican flags and an enormous eagle banner behind him, Mr. López Obrador promised to goad the government of the president-elect, Felipe Calderón, a conservative from the National Action Party of President Vicente Fox, into adopting his proposals.
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About 100,000 people crowded into the square and roared with approval when a copy of the traditional green, white and red presidential banner was placed across his chest.
We are assembled here to confront a fraudulent election, he said, and to take on a regime of corruption and privileges, to start the construction of a new republic.
Mr. López Obrador maintains that powerful business leaders colluded with Mr. Foxs party to mount a smear campaign depicting him as a dangerous leftist totalitarian. He also says Mr. Foxs party made a pact with the centrist former governing party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, to defeat him in northern states.
Both accusations are true to a degree, but the nations highest electoral court ruled that those actions were not enough to skew the election results. Mr. Calderón, 44, a former energy minister, won by 240,000 votes.
Mr. López Obrador, who is 53, said he intended to have members of his Democratic Revolution Party introduce legislation in Congress, then use public pressure to force the laws through. Among his proposals are measures to break up near monopolies, improve health care, raise the minimum wage and cut government salaries.
He said he intended to continue touring to promote his ideas.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Fox took a veiled swipe at Mr. López Obrador at an event marking the anniversary of the 1910 revolution, saying society should never permit strongmen and populists to trample civil liberties. Elections are the path that Mexicans have to preserve a political and public life that is plural, peaceful, orderly and civilized, he said.
It remained to be seen if Mondays political theater was a graceful exit for a candidate who could never acknowledge defeat, or truly the start of a unified left-wing movement to challenge the oligarchy of politicians and business executives who have controlled the country for a century.
The crowd was smaller than at Mr. López Obradors previous rallies, and divisions have appeared in his party. Some supporters have threatened to storm the dais to try to prevent Mr. Calderón from taking the oath of office on Dec. 1, while others are negotiating with his party, hoping to get the new president to adopt part of their agenda in return for political peace.
Forming a shadow government is astute politically, some analysts said, because it could keep Mr. López Obrador in the public eye during Mr. Calderóns six-year term and set up a possible run in 2012.
Most of the people who turned out to support him, however, have high hopes that he will somehow deliver on his campaign promises despite losing. He is our last hope, said Consuelo Sánchez Quiroz, a 64-year-old retired hotel worker. Fox and Calderón are both for the businessmen.
But others saw the ceremony on Monday as a grand romantic gesture, something Don Quixote could relate to. Its something that goes beyond material things, its something more spiritual, said Beatriz Ramírez, a 54-year-old psychologist, to believe in the future, in a more equal society, to believe that some day it will become reality. 
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Posted by .com 2006-11-21 01:09||
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Posted by Mike 2006-11-21 06:51||
2006-11-21 06:51||
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Posted by tu3031 2006-11-21 10:39||
2006-11-21 10:39||
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Posted by wxjames 2006-11-21 11:11||
2006-11-21 11:11||
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Posted by USN, ret. 2006-11-21 14:32||
2006-11-21 14:32||
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