Peter Gellert, Mexico City
A new stage in Mexican political life was opened last weekend with the National Democratic Convention, which brings together the broad array of political and social forces that have fought against alleged electoral fraud in the July 2 presidential elections that robbed Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (known as AMLO) of victory by a tiny margin.
Following 48 days of a massive tent city erected in Mexico City's main square, the Zocalo, and for a seven kilometer stretch along Avenida Reforma, a key thoroughfare, the encampments were lifted on September 15 and the National Democratic Convention was convened for the next day. It is conceived as a vehicle for moving the anti-fraud movement forward politically and organisationally.
Following left legislators' successful attempt to prevent President Vicente Fox from delivering his State of the Nation address on September 1 and the Federal Electoral Tribunal's decision to recognise Felipe Calderon of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) as president-elect, the second major confrontation was slated to occur on September 15-16, Mexican Independence Day.
Traditionally, the country's president gives what is known as the "Cry of Independence" from the balcony of the National Palace in the Zocalo on the night of September 15. However, the Zocalo was occupied by protesters and AMLO supporters announced that instead, they would give the traditional Cry.
Fox announced on several occasions that he had no intention of backing down, but faced with what would have been a humiliating spectacle of being booed by hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, the president abandoned the Zocalo to AMLO supporters and went elsewhere.
On September 16 slightly more than a million delegates gathered in the Zocalo and adjacent streets for the National Democratic Convention. The main question was whether to recognize Lopez Obrador as the legitimate president and form an alternative government or to name AMLO as head of the popular resistance. This and other questions were debated in the days before the convention in the pages of the mass-circulation left daily La Jornada, in social organisations and the encampments, and on various e-mail lists.
The overwhelming majority voted in favor of designating AMLO as the legitimate president, but the decision more reflects a radical and unambiguous rejection of Calderon than an attempt to actually install an alternative government in terms of functions such as police and army, tax collection, etc.
Among the other decisions adopted by the National Democratic Convention were:
* That the movement seeks to establish a "New Republic" in Mexico.
* That the nature of the movement is "civic and peaceful".
* The approvalof the members of three leadership commissions for the time being — a Political Commission, a National Civic Resistance Commission, and a National Commission for the Process of Drafting a New Constitution.
* Lopez Obrador was given the authority to select a cabinet for his "itinerant government".
* The mobilisation of the resistance to the usurpation of the presidency, beginning September 27 and culminating with a full mobilisation of all the movement forces on December 1, the official "inauguration" day.
* To call for mobilisations to confront the "usurper" Calderon whenever and wherever he appears in Mexico.
* Finally, the delegates voted for periodic mass meetings of the National Democratic Convention, and set March 21, 2007, as the date for the next assembly (approximately one-quarter of the crowd voted against this proposal, wanting to reconvene earlier — chants of "antes, antes" went up during and after the vote).
Politically, the platform approved by the convention included:
* To fight poverty and the "monstrous inequality" in the country.
* To defend the "social rights" of health care, housing, free and secular education and the right to work for a fair wage.
* To defend the cultural and political rights of all Mexicans, particularly the indigenous communities, women, the disabled and the elderly.
* To defend the national wealth as the birthright of all Mexicans, to fight the privatisation of oil, gas and electricity, public education, health care and social security.
* To give the public the right to information and access to all forms of communication, calling for reform of the radio and television laws and opposing the monopolisation of the media.
* To make the struggle against privilege, corruption and impunity a priority.
* To fight for a "profound renewal" of national institutions, especially the political institutions that have been controlled by the powerful only for their own interests.
Lopez Obrador will be sworn in as legitimate president on November 20, Constitution Day. On December 1, Felipe Calderon will officially take office, but opposition legislators pledge to physically block his swearing-in ceremony.
It is no secret that enormous pressure is being brought to bear on the PRD and its allies' recently elected legislators. The first cracks are already apparent among PRD governors, who appear to accept — albeit under protest — the Federal Electoral Tribunal's designation of Calderon as president. To maintain unity and attempt to discipline its legislators, the coalition parties have formed the Broad Progressive Front in parliament.
The historical and "moral" leader of the PRD, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas has also publicly distanced himself from AMLO and the party. Cardenas argues, on the one hand, that AMLO's program is not sufficiently radical and that his entourage contains former leaders of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI, the former ruling party) — a criticism echoed by many PRD members and supporters to say nothing of the radical left — and on the other, that the anti-fraud mobilisations are hurting the PRD.
At the same time, the political elite and mass media have been engaged in a furious, non-stop campaign against AMLO and his alternative government, attacking its legitimacy and accusing Lopez Obrador and his movement of being dangerous radicals. The main television channels went to the extreme of omitting coverage of the Cry of Independence celebration in the Zocalo on September 15, an unheard of occurrence in the media.
The political polarisation of the past two months in Mexico poses the real possibility of a major intensification of social struggles. AMLO and the forces in the anti-fraud movement openly disparage and distrust the institutions of ruling class governance and the formation of the National Democratic Convention shifts the focus to extra-parliamentary forms of struggle.
Meanwhile, all sorts of initiatives are being proposed. For example, in the context of the National Democratic Convention, the urban popular movement — neighbourhood and tenant organisations — is reorganising its forces, calling for a national conference on October 5. At a rally commemorating the 21st anniversary of the 1985 earthquake on September 19, movement leaders as well as top figures of the Mexico City government delivered strong radical speeches, with the officials emphasising the strategic importance of the mass movement. This reorganisation of the mass movements on a national scale based on unity and a radical confrontation with the powers that be is a development that would be hard to underestimate.
AMLO is soon to begin a national tour with his "itinerant government". This is also an important initiative, as the battle thus far has mainly been waged in Mexico City. The idea is to link the fight against the Calderon government with a social program based on local and national demands.
The developments of the past few weeks will undoubtedly have monumental effects on Mexican political life. Well-known mainstream journalist Ricardo Rocha puts it this way:
"AMLO — although it turns the stomach of his detractors — represents a force in and of himself, even beyond his party. He is a formidable social fighter who has gathered around him large groups of Mexicans in cities and towns the length and breadth of the entire country ... What we can be sure of is that it won't be as simple as using a PAN-PRI mechanical majority in Congress to, for example, approve new laws that allow for the privatisation of the Petroleos Mexicanos [Pemex, the state-owned oil company] and the Federal Electricity Commission [CFE, the electric power company]. AMLO and his troops will be doing something out there in the streets."