Protests may threaten the stability of Mexico

Transfer of power turns into rocky spectacle; leftist candidate refuses to concede election
- Monica Campbell, Chronicle Foreign Service
Sunday, September 3, 2006

(09-03) 04:00 PDT Mexico City -- Six years after President Vicente Fox's election ended seven decades of one-party rule, what should have been the first orderly transfer of power instead is challenging Mexico's democratic institutions and raising the threat of political destabilization.

The continuing street protests over the outcome of the July 2 presidential election and the continuing refusal of leftist politician Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to concede have become spectacle instead of succession.

Although Calderon's victory has yet to be certified, a seven-judge electoral court has tossed claims of electoral fraud made by Lopez Obrador and his left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.

The electoral court has until Wednesday either to call for a fresh election or to declare a president-elect. Its previous thumbs-down ruling on Lopez Obrador's demand for a national recount of the more than 41 million votes cast strongly suggests that Calderon will be named Mexico's next president.