Mexico City Mayor Update

Something we reported on ealier. This is becoming active again, and is very important. Early reports from the BBC are reporting this morning that President Vicente Fox has fired that country's Attourney General over the controversy stemming from the legal battle over Mexico City's popular leftist mayor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. It is widely believe that the action against Mr. Obrador is an attempt to disqualify him from runnig in the 2006 Mexican Presidential Election. According to the polls Mr. Obrador leads the incumbant party PAN canidate by a comfortable margin. Mr. Fox represents the PAN, a coalition of conservative land owners. Mr. Obrador is a member of the PRD, the Party of the Democratic Revolution.

More as this develops....

MEXICO CITY (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans took to the streets to support embattled Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and protest a legal case that could prevent him from running in the 2006 presidential election.

Blaming politics for his legal troubles, Lopez Obrador defied prosecutors and told the massive crowd that he would return to work as Mexico City mayor.

"Tomorrow (Monday) I return to work in my office," he told supporters jamming Mexico City's central plaza.

Lopez Obrador is one of Mexico's most popular politicians and is ranked by opinion polls ahead of the candidate supported by incumbent President Vicente Fox.

Vicente Fox and his National Action Party (PAN) in next year's presidential poll.

Lopez Obrador was forced out of his job after Congress stripped his parliamentary immunity on April 7 to face prosecution for defying a court order when he condemned private land to build a public road.

The populist mayor claims the move was to stop him running in next year's presidential elections.

Supporters hoisted placards saying "Fighting for Hope," and "Lopez Obrador: 2006." The march was also supported by lawmakers of the mayor's own Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD).

Mexico City's Zocalo plaza, with a capacity for 150,000, was jammed. Protest organizers said 1.2 million people jammed into the square's adjoining streets to join the "March of Silence." Federal officials however said that the crowds numbered 120,000.

Lopez Obrador had difficulty reaching the podium because of the massive crowd. Several other leaders of his party were unable to follow him to the front of the demonstration.

Politicians of Mexico's two main parties, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Fox's PAN voted to strip Lopez Obrador's immunity so that he could be prosecuted for disobeying the court order.

If prosecuted, under Mexican law Lopez Obrador cannot run for the presidency.

Prosecutors had warned Lopez Obrador to abandon his job as mayor, saying that without immunity he was ineligible to hold the post.

However, whether withdrawing Lopez Obrador's immunity from prosecution automatically ousts him from city hall has been the subject of intense debate among legal scholars and politicians.

"Legally I am still the head of (Mexico City's) Federal District, not only because I was elected democratically, but because I have not been legally indicted," he said.

On Friday, a judge turned down on a technicality a prosecutor's request to arrest Lopez Obrador.

Marchers included groups of wrestlers, indigenous Mexicans, retirees and motorcyclists.

Amid the vast crowd was a large Trojan horse made of wooden boxes and a giant inflatable Pinocchio.

"We came because with this (city) government things have gone better for us, we have better sports facilities and more work," said "The Ghost," one of 20 wrestlers that marched in the crowd.

"We believe that (Lopez Obrador) is concerned with the poorest Mexicans like us, and we do believe that he is innocent," said Rosaura Hernandez, an ethnic Triqui indian from the souteastern state of Oaxaca. She wore colorful traditionanal garb for the protest.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050425/wl_afp/mexicopoliticsmayor_050425050719