efroymson

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Just in time

Looks like we got out of Mexico just in time. The Reforma is closed to traffic, and the Zocalo is a mess. We saw a few protestors there last week, but it seemed pretty normal, kind of like the protestors I remember in the park across from the White House when I lived in DC in the 80s.

In my opinion the demonstration is misplaced. Lopez Obrador has cause for being upset, the defeat was very narrow, and perhaps there was fraud. Outside observers did not detect any but it would not take much to make a narrow loss into a narrow win. All the same there is a legal framework for resolving this, and his demand is to go outside of it. The vote-by-vote recount demanded sounds reasonable, but is not specified. Democracy means the rule of law, not the rule of the mob, even a large one.

Given that AMLO was mayor of Mexico city, it is not surprising that he can attract large crowds there. More worrisome is the reluctance of the local government to do anything about the blocked streets. I am not suggesting that Mexico recreate Tianamen square, but there should be some effort to allow traffic flow.

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