Under the cover of midnight, on the eve of his installation, Felipe
Calderon of the Partido Accion Nacional (PAN) was sworn in as the new
president of Mexico, not before Congress, but rather, in an impromptu
ceremony at Mexico's presidential palace. Five months after a highly
disputed election -- Mexico now has two presidents; one official
(Calderon) and the other, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the "legitimate
president of Mexico."

While the world has been watching this chaotic transfer of power, also
under the cover of night, the Mexican government has been waging a
mini civil war in the primarily Indigenous and southern state of
Oaxaca.

The presidential dispute, in a sense, has been similar to the chaos
of the 2000 U.S. election? except that after having already lived
through the earlier highly disputed 1988 Mexican presidential
elections -- in which the ruling PRI candidate, Carlos Salinas de
Gotiari, was given the nod ? this time, Obrador of the Party of the
Democratic Revolution (PRD) and his supporters continue to allege
fraud. (In 1988, after the election computers mysteriously broke done
-- with the PRD challenger, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas in the lead -- the
computers came back on and showed Salinas as the winner).
One can only imagine if Al Gore had refused the results of the 2000
elections in the streets. Despite the fact that more people voted for
Gore, it's difficult to imagine the scenario? scenarios that have been
repeated around the world in which the masses reject election results
(alleging fraud), forcing the pretenders to resign. In Mexico's case,
Obrador has established a phantom and parallel government, not
necessarily interested in toppling the Calderon regime, but in
shadowing and promoting an Indigenous, worker's and poor people's
agenda.

In that sense, his agenda is similar to the politics taking hold
throughout the continent. Just in the past several weeks, Hugo Chavez
? a thorn in the side of the Bush administration -- was reelected as
president of Venezuela. In Nicaragua, also to the chagrin of the Bush
administration, Sandinista Daniel Otrtega is back in power after being
elected president there. Also recently, Rafael Correa of Ecuador
defeated a U.S.-backed candidate. All this comes on the heels of
Michelle Bachelet becoming Chile's first woman president and the
historic election of Evo Morales as president of Bolivia ? becoming
Bolivia's first Indigenous head of state since before the arrival of
Europeans to this continent (The continent's Indigenous movement has
symbolically proclaimed him the Indigenus president of the Americas).

Amid these historic developments, Obrador is promising to shadow
Calderon, the U.S.-backed president. If all this was not drama enough,
the state of siege in Oaxaca over the past several weeks has actually
been drowning out the Obrador-Calderon confronation. Since the summer,
teachers from Oaxaca (and the state's Indigenous movement) have
demanded ? through massive protests and sit-ins -- the resignation of
PRI Gov. Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. All has come to a head as of several weeks
ago when government officials decided to break up the protests. Ever
since, Oaxaca has been in a state of siege, at least nine protestors
have died thus far, while hundreds have been jailed. Also, in a
draconian move, the top leader of the oppositon, Flavio Sosa, of the
Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO), was arrested after
returning from negotiations in Mexico City. None of this bodes well as
allegations are being made that paramilitary activity, torture and
disappearances have returned there. In effect, what is feared is that
this signals a return to Mexico's dirty wars of the 1960s-1980s.
At the moment, Calderon is saying all the right things? about the need
for unity... and fighting for Mexico's neediest. Of course, Obrador
and his supporters and the nation's Indigenous movement see it as but
a subterfuge. What some wonder is that if Sosa was brazenly arrested,
can Obrador's arrest ? for treason ? not be far behind?
While many wonder what this all means for Mexico, perhaps the more
important question is, what does this all mean for the Americas? Of
course, here, the question perhaps is, what is the significance of all
these changes to the United States? One view is that the Americas are
rejecting the extremes and moving toward the center. Another view,
perhaps more widely held throughout the continent, is that the peoples
of the Americas are once again in convulsion ? in the process of
rejecting the hegemony and domination of their northern neighbor.

(c) Column of the Americas 2006