Obrador takes risk with Mexico protests

No one was surprised that Andrés Manuel López Obrador contested Mexico's July 2 election – the closest in the nation's history – by calling mass street protests and submitting numerous documents alleging fraud.

When he declared himself president to a US-based television network last week, some eyebrows went up. Now he is orchestrating permanent protest camps along a main thoroughfare of the traffic-choked capital in a bid to sway an electoral court to grant a full recount.

Some are wondering: Has he gone too far? The civil resistance campaign, which is causing major disruptions and which some likened to "hostage taking," is dividing a polarized country and could ultimately cost the leftist candidate those supporters who feel he has crossed the line and worry about how far he is willing to go.

"There are a lot of people supporting him in a recount of the votes. But in blocking [the center of the city], he is going to lose a lot of people who have been backing him all along," says Rafael Fernández de Castro, chairman of the international studies program at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM) who backs neither candidate. "Why take this city hostage? It seems to me in the end this will backfire."

Some of Mr. Obrador's voters are already disillusioned. "I voted for him, but I can no longer support him, starting today," says Mateo de la Cruz, a parking attendant who stood in front of an empty lot that he says would normally be full. "Now he is hurting me personally."

For those participating in the protests, many who spent the day playing chess or cards and eating lunch together, charges of "hijacking" and "conspiracy" are exaggerated.

On Sunday, Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), attracted one of the largest crowds ever to fill the city's main square, the Zocalo. The Reforma, a tree-lined boulevard that houses the US Embassy and major corporations and cuts through the heart of Mexico City, ground to a halt Monday, with Obrador supporters pitching tents and their kids kicking footballs where cars normally whiz by.

"We will do whatever it takes for him to win," says Maria Guadalupe Chavarria, who was knitting a blanket in the middle of the street Monday and says she will take turns with others from Mexico City until they succeed. She shrugs off inconveniences caused to thousands of city residents. "Our fight is a peaceful one."

Obrador indeed urged his supporters Sunday to stay nonviolent, and addressed the hassles such a protest will produce, especially for his rivals. "I hope that some day they will understand us," he told the crowd, estimated at over a million, "understand that this struggle is necessary, not just for us but for everyone."

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