Clashes before Pena Nieto's oath
Source: Agencies |
December 2, 2012, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
PROTESTERS opposed to new President Enrique Pena Nieto's rule clashed with tear gas-wielding police outside Mexico's Congress in Mexico City early yesterday just hours before he was to take the oath of office and return the country's old guard to power.
Pena Nieto already took over at midnight in a symbolic ceremony after campaigning as the new face of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, repentant and reconstructed after being voted out of the presidency in 2000. The PRI ruled for 71 years with a mix of populist handouts, graft and rigged elections.
Hundreds of protesters banged on the tall steel security barriers around Congress, threw rocks, bottle rockets and firecrackers at police and yelled "Mexico without PRI!" Police responded by spraying tear gas from a truck to disperse the crowd and used fire extinguishers on flames from Molotov cocktails. The air was filled with smoke and shouts as officers, their faces streaming with tears from the gas, ordered the crowds to get back.
One officer was seen being taken for medical treatment for injuries to his face.
Pena Nieto has promised to govern democratically with transparency. But his first moves even before the inauguration showed a solid link to the past.
In announcing his Cabinet on Friday, he turned to the old guard as well as new technocrats to run his administration.
"I don't think there is any such thing as a 'new PRI'," said Rodrigo Aguilera, the Mexico analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit. "There is a new generation of PRI members, but they don't represent any fundamentally different outlook."
Pena Nieto assumed office in the early seconds yesterday during a brief ceremony with outgoing President Felipe Calderon at Mexico's historic National Palace.
The swearing-in ceremony at Congress and then a speech at the National Palace were set to be low on pomp and high on security as Calderon made a smooth transition his goal. Six years ago, Calderon's security unit literally had to muscle him past blockades and protesters to get him into Congress so he could take the oath of office after a razor-thin, disputed victory over a leftist candidate.
Pena Nieto already took over at midnight in a symbolic ceremony after campaigning as the new face of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, repentant and reconstructed after being voted out of the presidency in 2000. The PRI ruled for 71 years with a mix of populist handouts, graft and rigged elections.
Hundreds of protesters banged on the tall steel security barriers around Congress, threw rocks, bottle rockets and firecrackers at police and yelled "Mexico without PRI!" Police responded by spraying tear gas from a truck to disperse the crowd and used fire extinguishers on flames from Molotov cocktails. The air was filled with smoke and shouts as officers, their faces streaming with tears from the gas, ordered the crowds to get back.
One officer was seen being taken for medical treatment for injuries to his face.
Pena Nieto has promised to govern democratically with transparency. But his first moves even before the inauguration showed a solid link to the past.
In announcing his Cabinet on Friday, he turned to the old guard as well as new technocrats to run his administration.
"I don't think there is any such thing as a 'new PRI'," said Rodrigo Aguilera, the Mexico analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit. "There is a new generation of PRI members, but they don't represent any fundamentally different outlook."
Pena Nieto assumed office in the early seconds yesterday during a brief ceremony with outgoing President Felipe Calderon at Mexico's historic National Palace.
The swearing-in ceremony at Congress and then a speech at the National Palace were set to be low on pomp and high on security as Calderon made a smooth transition his goal. Six years ago, Calderon's security unit literally had to muscle him past blockades and protesters to get him into Congress so he could take the oath of office after a razor-thin, disputed victory over a leftist candidate.
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