Adviser defends Mexican protestors

An adviser to the candidate who narrowly lost Mexico's presidential election this summer defended his party's unrelenting protests of election results at a speech Wednesday, alleging widespread voter fraud and calling for an end to government corruption.

Tens of thousands of people gathered outside the Mexican Congress last Friday in an effort to prevent the swearing-in of Felipe Calderon. Protestors have filled the streets of Mexico City since Calderon was declared president-elect in July.

Manuel Camacho Solis, who advised Democratic Revolution Party candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said he questions the government's ability to improve the lives of people in Mexico.

"A lot of people have said that these institutions don't work anymore, he said, "and therefore they mobilize themselves against the government because they see the government as illegitimate," Solis said.

Though Solis alleged that the left has been excluded from Mexican politics and depicted the resistance movement as a righteous cause fighting a corrupt political regime, he repeatedly called for dialogue as the answer to Mexico's political woes.

Obrador has abandoned presidential ambitions but continues to lead protests in favor of bringing democracy to Mexico, Solis said. "If he were thinking of being president of Mexico, [Obrador] would have followed a different strategy," he said.

More than 40 percent of Mexicans think fraud took place during the election and who called for sweeping electoral reform.

He expressed doubt, though, about whether change would come quickly, saying the opposition's efforts to establish rule of law in Mexico would meet with resistance from government officials who do not want to be held accountable for crimes. He also cited special interest groups and government control of the media as obstacles to justice for the poor, comparing Mexico's media to the Soviet media of the past.

Mexico's economy was also discussed during the lecture. Solis said his party's anti-globalization economic policies would have helped Mexico's poor, and called again for political dialogue and consensus to reform the country's economy.

Audience members challenged Solis to explain how the opposition movement would help Mexico. In a question-and-answer session, electrical engineering graduate student Gilberto Contreras expressed concern that the opposition's refusal to cooperate with the government would only exacerbate polarization and impede political progress in Mexico.

"I believe that right now the problem is creating a lot of polarization between the two halves of Mexico," Contreras said in an interview after the event.

Though Solis acknowledged the importance of dialogue, he indicated that the opposition would continue trying to provoke change through resistance. "We need time in the left to show them, by mobilizing people in the streets, that they cannot win power," Solis said. "Hopefully this will take six months and not six years."

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Solis' lecture — one of a series of events commemorating Mexican Heritage Month — was sponsored by the Princeton Latin American Society, the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies and the USG.