Editorial LiveJournalists go bipolar on Lopez Obrador
The Chronicle Editorial LiveJournalists wrote the following for the July 7 edition of the newspaper:
IN so-called "mature democracies" - such as ours - watching your candidate lose by a hair's breadth is healthy. Because they trust the system, disappointed voters turn out for the next election in even greater numbers, feistier than ever.
Democracy, in other words, begets democracy. Now Mexico, which shed one-party rule just six years ago, is being tested by its own astonishingly close outcome. So far, Mexico's democracy seems to be mature beyond its years.
[snip]
Now it's up to Mexicans of all parties - and [Andres Manuel] Lopez Obrador especially - to choose the rule of law over political desire. So far, they've shown remarkable maturity.
At the time, of course, there were already warnings from Lopez Obrador that he would contest the results, and rumblings that he and his supporters would take to the streets if necessary to claim their electoral victory. But the Editorial LiveJournalists preferred to ignore that.
The Editorial LiveJournalists wrote the following for July 26 editions of the Chronicle:
Actually, Mexico's conservative, sensible national character makes widespread violence unlikely. "The Mexicans went through the revolution in the beginning of the century, and 5 to 10 percent of the population died or were maimed in that revolution," George Grayson, a political scientist at the College of William and Mary, said. That trauma, and a self-preserving instinct dating from colonial times, leaves most Mexicans with little taste for civil unrest.
That last assertion came in the same editorial that mentioned several acts of civil unrest. More have followed. Indeed, this story by Chronicle staff seems to contradict the all-knowing Editorial LiveJournalists:
Lopez Obrador said he will be among the protesters occupying the Zocalo. Ranking members of his political coalition will take up posts in the plaza and along the Reforma, he said.
He ordered followers taking part in the sit-ins not to damage public property or provoke confrontations.
"All our actions will be based on the idea of peaceful civil resistance, in a framework of nonviolence," Lopez Obrador said.
Such street protests have been a way of life in Mexico City for decades. They often snare the already chaotic traffic, infuriating many residents. Anticipating some negative reaction, Lopez Obrador asked for understanding.
In other words, civil unrest has been a way of life in Mexico's most populous city for decades, according to the Chron staffer on the scene. Maybe the Editorial LiveJournalists meant to suggest that they thought the possibility of violent civil unrest was low. That's not what they wrote, though.
Yesterday, the Editorial LiveJournalists were back on the case:
This week, [Lopez Obrador] — now runner-up to the presidency — forced city traffic into a standstill. Protesting his loss in the July presidential election, Andre Manuel Lopez Obrador for four days has led followers in a massive encampment on the city's main boulevard.
It's a disturbing reflection of how Lopez Obrador's righteous defense of common Mexicans has become a tantrum starting to harm them.
[snip]
What Lopez Obrador has wrong, and gets more wrong by the day, is his growing contempt for the laws and institutions there to defend him.
In recent weeks he has denounced citizen poll workers for fraud, called Mexico's president a traitor to democracy, declared that he is president and, this week, shut down much of Mexico City.
[snip]
For the sake of the followers who need his leadership so badly, Lopez Obrador needs to unblock those streets. The attempt to pressure a legal tribunal with street justice itself betrays democracy, and it betrays all Mexicans who turned out to vote.
It's strange that the Editorial LiveJournalists are now so critical of Lopez Obrador, since he has simply followed through on what he effectively promised supporters when the same Editorial LiveJournalists were praising his "remarkable maturity" and lecturing readers that the United States could learn from Mexico's election!
UPDATE (08-07-2006): Lopez Obrador does not seem inclined to take the latest advice of the Editorial LiveJournalists.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 08/05/06 09:33 PM | Print | Comments (0)
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