Mexican Coke Exec takes opponent off ballot

[Moses]

Note: This story didn't turn up on the Google News page, while the stories about Ukraine etc (the US government engineered coups) did:


April 8, 2005

Opposition Chief at Risk in Mexico
By GINGER THOMPSON and JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

MEXICO CITY, April 7 - In a vote that casts doubt on the strength of Mexico's fledgling democracy, this city's popular leftist mayor lost a critical battle in Congress on Thursday over a measure that is likely to force him off the ballot in presidential elections next year and could lead to his imprisonment.

Hundreds of thousands of people were gathered in Mexico City's central square throughout the day to protest the action, a rare proceeding known in Mexico as a "desafuero," in which Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador was stripped of his official immunity so he could stand trial in a minor land dispute.

In terms of political rights, the Mexican Constitution holds suspects guilty until proved innocent, so Mr. Lopez will be banned from politics until the end of a trial.

Legislators in the 500-member Chamber of Deputies began debating the charges about 10 a.m. in a scathing session that continued uninterrupted until the evening, when the vote was held. Of the 489 who attended the session, 360 favored lifting the immunity, 127 were opposed and there were 2 abstentions.

Political analysts said that the proceedings were a critical test in this country's transition to a full-fledged democracy that began just five years ago when Mexicans broke seven decades of single-party rule with the peaceful election of Vicente Fox, the first president to come from an opposition party.

The protests, which had largely ended by late Thursday, brought comparisons to the recent pro-democracy demonstrations in the Ukraine that helped lift Viktor A. Yuschenko to power. But while Mr. Lopez said support for him would grow, his adversaries seemed confident the protests would die out soon.

Mr. Fox, who left Mexico on Thursday to attend the funeral for Pope John Paul II, had often characterized the proceedings against Mr. Lopez as proof that elected officials could no longer operate above the law.

But, addressing his supporters on Thursday, Mr. López, 51, called the action against him a farce, staged for political reasons, not legal ones, from the offices of the president. Indeed, cases like the one Mayor Lopez is facing rarely warrant prosecution, let alone imprisonment.

Polls have consistently shown Mr. López as the leading candidate to succeed President Fox.

The mayor said the president's conservative National Action Party and the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ran this country for seven consecutive decades, had forged an unlikely alliance to cripple his left-wing movement so that they could stay in power and maintain the status quo. That claim appeared borne out in the vote: all of the National Action Party's legislators voted in favor of lifting the immunity; all but 12 members of the PRI, which has a plurality in Congress, voted in favor as well.

Knocking him out of the race, Mr. López warned, would undermine the will of the people and move Mexico back to an era when the political elite ruled like monarchs.

"Whichever of them wins, things remain the same," Mr. López said. "They will maintain a corrupt and privileged regime, and continue devouring the country."

The case against the mayor has polarized Mexico, raising concerns about civil unrest here and worrying Wall Street. Mr. López's spending on social programs and public works projects has made him popular among the poor and the struggling middle class.

Together with his talk of reining in free-trade policies and renegotiating the national debt, that popularity has prompted some business leaders to compare him to Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez.

His earthy, austere political style made ordinary Mexicans feel he understood their problems. But evidence of corruption among the mayor's aides - his chief political operative was caught by secret cameras accepting bribes from a wealthy businessman - and his refusal to voluntarily submit to prosecution in the land dispute made others wonder whether Mr. López was dishonest.

Newspaper polls have shown that as many as 60 percent of Mexicans reject the proceedings against Mr. López as a political conspiracy. Still, no matter what side they are on, Mexican political leaders, intellectuals and business executives have said they considered this a pivotal moment in their history. At stake, they said, was not whether or not Mr. López committed a minor crime, but the legitimacy of the upcoming presidential elections and of the multiparty democracy that emerged from the last.

"I am not here for López Obrador. I am here for Mexico," said Elisabeth Cazares, a housewife who attended the demonstration on Thursday in the central square, called the Zócalo. "There is a small class of powerful people in Mexico who live above us like they are in some kind of heaven on earth, and they think they know what is best and that the rest of us are incapable of making good choices. But we deserve a chance to govern."

Referring to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, she added, "It is hard for me to accept that in these times, Mexico is still run like it was in the Porfiriato."

Mr. López, who has a history of leading violent protests, called on followers this time to mount a peaceful campaign of civil disobedience, and avoid harmful acts that could erode their public support. He has said he wants to emulate the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi.

"Nothing of violence," he told the crowds on Thursday. "No falling to provocation. This movement has been and will be peaceful. To do otherwise would be to act in the logic of our adversaries, and we cannot allow that."

The next step in the action, which is similar to an impeachment proceeding, is likely to be an order for Mr. Lopez's arrest and his ouster from his position as mayor. Mr. Lopez has said he would remain in jail throughout the trial, rather than posting bail, as an act of civil disobedience.

It became clear this week that concern about unrest had spread beyond Mexico. Foreign investors, who had helped double Mexican stock market values since early 2003, began to raise questions about whether the worsening political crisis could upset an otherwise stable Mexican economy. The stock market here had fallen more than 12 percent since a peak a month ago.

While the rest of the world mourned the death of Pope John Paul II, this mostly Roman Catholic country seemed consumed by the legal proceedings against Mr. López. His appearance before Congress became a moment of riveting political drama.

The lead prosecutor against Mr. López, Carlos Vega Memije, told legislators that for 11 months, Mr. López had disobeyed a court order against building a hospital access road. Echoing the Fox party line, he said that the time had come to stop the Mexican authorities from abusing their power to stand above the law.

"What Mexico do we want," the prosecutor asked, "the Mexico of laws, or the Mexico of impunity."

Mr. López scoffed at the prosecutor's arguments. Then he asserted that his accusers were guilty of much bigger crimes of government corruption that had cost the country billions of dollars and untold numbers of lives, and that none had been prosecuted.

[Moses]

HoustonChronicle.com -- www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Page 1


April 8, 2005, 6:04AM

Political career of Mexico City's mayor curbed

Any prosecution likely would end Lopez Obrador's presidential hopes

By IOAN GRILLO and DUDLEY ALTHAUS
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Mexico City Bureau

Reuters
Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrado, accompanied by his sons, wave to supporters after Congress voted Thursday to strip him of legal immunity.

MEXICO CITY - Ignoring a protest by more than 150,000 of his supporters in the Mexican capital's central plaza, Congress voted Thursday to strip the legal immunity from a leading presidential candidate, exposing him to criminal charges and threatening to destroy his political career.

With the vote, Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was suspended from his municipal post and likely will be prevented from running in next year's presidential elections, throwing wide open the contest to succeed President Vicente Fox.

The mayor faces federal charges related to his administration's failure to obey a court order in 2001 to stop construction of an access road to a private hospital. Attempts to prosecute him have angered many Mexicans and led some analysts to warn of permanent damage to the country's fledgling democracy.

"From the perspective of the consolidation of democracy, gold has been traded for a handful of peanuts," historian Lorenzo Meyer wrote in Mexico City's Reforma newspaper.

Fox and others who have supported lifting the mayor's immunity, however, have insisted they were interested only in upholding the rule of law in a country where officials have long been unaccountable. Lopez Obrador, his supporters and even many who don't personally favor him have viewed the process as a political lynching.

"What kind of rule of law is this?" Lopez Obrador asked in a speech to Congress before the vote was taken. "You can charge me. But history will judge us all."

The vote went against Lopez Obrador with the heavy support of Fox's center-right National Action Party and the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century.

In the lower chamber of deputies, 360 legislators voted that Lopez Obrador immediately lose his immunity. Just 127 federal deputies, mostly members of Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party voted against the measure.

Two lawmakers abstained, and 11 were absent.

The Mexican Attorney General's Office said it will file charges against the mayor related to the access road. If convicted of abuse of authority, Lopez could be sentenced to up to eight years in prison.

Under most interpretations of Mexico's Constitution, anyone facing criminal charges cannot run for public office. Lopez Obrador took a leave of absence from the mayorship Wednesday, passing power to his top aide, Alejandro Encinas. If Lopez Obrador is acquitted, he can recover his position; If convicted, he will be forced to resign.

Hours before the vote, Lopez Obrador formerly announced his candidacy for next year's presidential elections before his supporters in the Zocalo, Mexico City's downtown plaza.

Lopez Obrador has led many opinion polls on that race for the past two years. The mayor's party will hold a primary July 31 to select its candidate.

Though down, Lopez Obrador is not necessarily out. He still has a chance to either beat the charges or win a court injunction that would allow him to run for president, analyst Federico Estevez said.

Lopez Obrador said at the Thursday rally he will opt for prison rather than posting bail against the charges, which are likely to be filed within a week.

The mayor called on followers to launch a national campaign in protest of what he called the plot against him. But he urged supporters to refrain from fighting with the police or occupying buildings.

"We will not fall for their provocations," Lopez Obrador said. "This movement is not, has not been and never will be violent."

As the debate and vote were held, the Congress was guarded by 4,000 federal police supported by horses, armored vehicles and yard-high plastic shields. No violence was reported.

Some analysts now say Fox's own democratic credentials could be stained by the prosecution of Lopez Obrador.

"The result in 2006 will be the same as in 1988," wrote Meyer, the historian. "The left won't have a chance."

---

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[Moses]

Impeachment trial of Mexico City mayor rattles markets

By John Authers in Mexico City
Published: April 6 2005 03:00 | Last updated: April 6 2005 03:00

Mexican markets suffered sharp reverses yesterday, as investors responded to warnings that tomorrow's impeachment trial of Mexico City's left-wing mayor could lead to increased political volatility.

The yield on the benchmark 20-year peso-denominated government bond, which has seen heavy buying from foreign investors over the past few months, has gone from 10.3 to 11.2 per cent since the impeachment trial of the mayor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was first announced late on Friday.

In the stock market, the benchmark IPC index fell 2.3 per cent, and has now fallen more than 11 per cent in the past month. The peso also slipped, falling from 11.18 to 11.27 to the dollar. It had hit a rate of 10.98 a month ago.

President Vicente Fox tried to calm the markets. Speaking to a conference organised by Monterrey Tech university, he said recent macroeconomic indicators showed the country was on "the right track".

"This is the moment to invest, to invest to increase productive work and economic growth," he said.

Several large investment banks warned that political risk created by the impeachment process could create volatility.

Mr López Obrador, who has threatened a campaign of civil disobedience if he is removed from his post and barred from running for office, currently has a comfortable lead in all polls for next year's presidential election. Polls suggest more than four in five Mexicans oppose the impeachment process.

Gray Newman, Latin American economist for Morgan Stanley in New York, said: "If the Mexican electorate begins to feel that the move to strip the front-runner of his immunity and force him from office is being motivated by a desire to limit the choices presented in the presidential race, I am afraid that the political turmoil can turn nasty."

He said he was convinced Mexico could weather the political turbulence with its fiscal and monetary stability intact, but added: "I am afraid we are about to discover that the economy and Mexico's markets are not immune from a nasty bout of investor nervousness."

Damian Fraser, Latin American equity strategist for UBS in Mexico City, also thought the risk of contagion to the economy was limited, but said: "The wide spectrum of opinions on the impeachment suggests rising political uncertainty and risk."

Geoffrey Dennis, Latin American equity strategist at Citigroup Smith Barney, warned that "all the bad news is not yet priced in". However, he said impeachment might be a "long-term positive" if Mr López Obrador were blocked from running for the presidency.

Mr López Obrador is hoping to bring a million protesters to the centre of Mexico City ahead of tomorrow's impeachment vote. It is not clear how much national mourning for the Pope will diminish tension.

[Moses]

Huge crowd rallies in Mexico City to support mayor

Cox News Service
April 8, 2005
 <br>MEXICO CITY -- Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets here Thursday as Mexico's congress voted to begin a process that could disqualify Mexico City's mayor, the leading presidential candidate, from the 2006 presidential race.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, standard-bearer of the left-leaning Democratic Revolutionary Party, is accused of violating a judge's order to stop construction of a road on contested private land. Congress voted by a wide margin to strip him of immunity in the case. If indicted, Lopez Obrador would be barred from seeking the presidency.

The vote came despite fears that disqualifying the popular mayor would lead to months of social and economic unrest. Opinion polls show most Mexicans oppose the effort against Lopez Obrador.
The mayor, elected in 2000, is beloved by many working-class Mexicans for his social programs, which include a monthly grant of about $60 dollars for all residents of Mexico Cityover age 70.
At a morning rally for the mayor, an estimated 340,000 supporters crammed Mexico City's main square waving flags and chanting in support.

The mayor's opponents have insisted they are merely applying the letter of the law and say Lopez Obrador flouted a judge's order to stop construction for nearly a year.

[Moses]

Posted on Fri, Apr. 08, 2005

Political vote roils Mexico



MEXICO CITY — Mexico's Congress voted Thursday to deprive Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of immunity from prosecution.

The move is considered likely to prevent him from running for president next year, and to set off months of political tension.

After an emotional debate that lasted almost 10 hours, Congress voted 360 to 127, with two abstentions, to allow Lopez Obrador to be charged with contempt of court for allegedly failing to halt construction in 2001 on an access road the city was building across private property to a hospital.

Lopez Obrador had no immediate comment, but the vote was greeted with anger by thousands of his supporters who crowded Mexico City's main square, where they watched the proceedings live on huge television screens.

“The fight will go on,” one speaker exhorted the crowd as papier-mache figures dressed as Mexican President Vicente Fox; his wife, Marta; and other officials in prison garb were paraded around.

Earlier in the day, Lopez Obrador had told the crowd that whatever Congress' decision, he would run for president next year, even if he had to do so from jail.

“Don't have the least doubt: I haven't committed any crime or violated any law,” he said.

— Susana Hayward

Knight Ridder Newspapers

[Moses]

www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-dresser8apr08,0,7539387.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

COMMENTARY

Saving Mexico by Ruining It

The attack on Mexico City's mayor is backfiring.

By Denise Dresser
Denise Dresser is a professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico and a former member of Mexico's Citizens' Advisory Committee to the Special Prosecutor for Crimes of the Past.

April 8, 2005

Today, Mexico is a country divided. Today, the mantra of Mexico's political and economic elites has become "anybody but Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador," the mayor of Mexico City who they perceive as a dangerous, polarizing demagogue — but who is the front-runner for the presidency in 2006.

The ruling classes fear him and what they believe he will do if he wins: nationalize, overspend, jeopardize Mexico's hard-won economic gains. They're determined to stop him. But in doing so, they are tearing apart a country where political stability cannot be taken for granted. They are undermining the democracy it took so long to achieve. They are wreaking havoc in Mexico in their attempt to save it from the left.

The proceedings this week against Lopez Obrador are not about the rule of law. They're about kicking a popular left-wing front-runner out of the presidential race. As a result of shrewd patronage politics and savvy political positioning, Lopez Obrador is the most popular politician in the country. That makes him dangerous to an array of vested interests and explains why he has so many powerful enemies obsessed with bringing him down, including President Vicente Fox.

As a result of a political crusade disguised as a legal issue, Lopez Obrador is caught in a battle for his political life. The attorney general's office has accused him of ignoring a restraining order issued by the courts and moving forward with construction of a road to a hospital on land whose ownership has been contested. Now that the Chamber of Deputies has stripped him of his immunity from prosecution, he faces a potential prison sentence and could be deemed ineligible to run for the presidency while his case goes through the system.

Given how it has weighed in on this issue, the Fox government appears increasingly hypocritical and inconsistent. The president claims that Lopez Obrador must obey the law, but refuses to charge prominent members of his own National Action Party, or PAN, who have broken it. He speaks about the need to enforce legality where the mayor is concerned, but turns a blind eye to lawbreakers in the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Every time the president and his collaborators piously claim to enforce "the rule of law," most Mexicans remember that it doesn't really exist. As a result, 78% of the population opposes the current proceeding and questions its true motives.

The onslaught against the mayor shows that Fox has become everything he once fought against. The candidate who five years ago promised to change the status quo has now turned into its chief defender. The forceful man who promised to dismantle an unjust political system now hides behind its politicized institutions. The political outsider who campaigned to kick the PRI out of power now needs that party's votes to impeach his left-wing adversary. What's clear is that Fox fears Lopez Obrador's potential victory and what he represents more than he fears the return of the PRI.

The concerted attack on Lopez Obrador has had paradoxical effects. Before the impeachment process began, Lopez Obrador was a pragmatic leftist; now he's a radical martyr. His enemies have always believed that he would be a Mexican version of Venezuela's divisive President Hugo Chavez, but now, with blows below the belt, they are creating one. Lopez Obrador is more confrontational than ever. His rhetoric is more incendiary, his position is more recalcitrant. Under siege, he insists on behaving as a revolutionary who divides instead of as a reformer who unites.

Lopez Obrador has added fuel to the fire by calling for people to march in the streets instead of working within established institutions. As a result, Mexico is trapped in a vicious cycle: The political and economic elites are producing an angry populace, and Lopez Obrador is spawning a united PAN-PRI front willing to sabotage democracy to stop him.

What's really at stake is the survival and quality of Mexican democracy. Regardless of Lopez Obrador's flaws, his fate should be determined by Mexico's citizens and not by its elites. The farcical, trumped-up effort to remove him from the race violates the democratic right to support a candidate or decry him and his policies through the ballot box. Fox and his allies in the PRI should put aside their short-term political calculations and respect that fundamental right.

[Moses]

Mexican Congress Votes 360 to 127 to Stop Candidate Obrador

By Al Giordano,
Posted on Thu Apr 7th, 2005 at 08:40:47 PM EST

The debate, which lasted most of the day, is over, at least in the halls of Congress. All but one member of President Vicente Fox's PAN party, and all but twelve of those of Roberto Madrazo's PRI party, obeyed orders, and voted to remove the political rights of Mexico City Governor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, just moments ago.

The final vote count was 360 votes in favor of the "desafuero," to 127 votes against, with two absentions.

It means that, for now, López Obrador will be removed from his elected post pending court actions. Unless and until he is absolved of the charge of disobeying an order against a hospital access road (one that he never built, having instead constructed an alternate route), he could be barred from being a presidential candidate in 2006, although he towers over all other candidates in the public opinion polls.

At a demonstration today in Mexico City, López Obrador called upon his supporters to remain peaceful and to not block streets or highways, or occupy government buildings at present. That he makes such an appeal is an indication of the mood of much of the country, angered by this political assassination. He called for a silent march on April 24 in Mexico City.

Meanwhile, a country awaits to see what ace, if any, he has up his sleeve, to beat back what effectively was a preemptive coup d'etat against Mexican democracy.

[camaxtle]

I'm a big fan of Lopez Obrador, and the thought of another leftist coming to power in Latin America made me smile, but this whole thing just stinks really bad. Just because Obrador, took part of a person's land in order to put a acdess road for a HOSPITAL. Okay so the person had a right to take the government to court, but there isn't even evidence that Obrador was personally involved in it.
Is our government behind this? You know the last thing they want is another leftist in power in Latin America. It's really sad. I'm hoping that something good can come of this, but I'm thinking it might tear the country apart, I mean this whole thing just stinks of the PRI days.

[Moses]

I'm 100% sure the US is involved-- however, I read that this is an old trick in Mexico-- so maybe the political lynching through minor legal infractions or scandals is a leaf the US fascists tore out of the Mexican and other playbooks. (Clinton being a victim).

[Moses]

Judge dismisses organized crime charges against former Mexican presidential employee

Saturday April 09, 2005

TOLUCA, Mexico (AP) An aide to President Vicente Fox was ordered freed from prison Saturday after a judge ruled that prosecutors failed to prove accusations that he had passed information about the president's travel plans to a drug gang.

Prosecutors promised to appeal the ruling freeing Nahum Acosta, the head of Fox's travel staff who was first detained in February.
The case took on political overtones last month when the leader of Fox's conservative National Action Party accused prosecutors of trying to use the case to damage the party.

Fox's office said Saturday's ruling proved there was no vendetta and that the country's institutions worked ``transparently and without hiding anything.''

The evidence against Acosta included a telephone conversation of a drug leader allegedly discussing the delivery of $5,000 to Acosta, as well as alleged recordings of conversations between Acosta and the drug leader himself.

Mexico's top organized crime prosecutor, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, noted that prosecutors had been able to overturn such rulings on appeal in the past.


(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

[Moses]

Newspaper director shot to death on Mexico's Gulf coast[/size]

Saturday April 09, 2005
By MIGUEL ANGEL HERNANDEZ
Associated Press Writer

VERACRUZ, Mexico (AP) The director of a newspaper on Mexico's Gulf coast was shot to death in an apparent ambush by drug hitmen, police reported Saturday, the second attack on Mexican journalists in as many months.

Drug traffickers were suspected in the Friday night shooting of Raul Gibb Guerrero, director of the La Opinion of Poza Rica newspaper, and two other recent attacks on journalists, according to organized crime prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos.

``He had written about the Gulf drug Cartel and corruption,'' Vasconcelos told reporters on Mexico City. ``These (drug) gangs want to operate in silence and in secret, and when anybody draws public attention to them, they react with irrationality and violence.''

He had no body guards or escort, said his sister, Silvia Gibb Guerrero, the managing editor of the La Opinion newspaper. ``Journalism is done with courage and decisiveness,'' she quoted her brother as saying.

It was the latest in a string of violent attacks on journalists in northern Mexico.

On April 5, Guadalupe Garcia Escamilla, 39, a radio reporter in Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas, was shot eight times by an assailant as she arrived at work. She survived.

In a seperate case, Alfredo Jimenez, a reporter for the newspaper El Imparcial de Hermosillo, was last seen a week ago, and was reported missing after failing to show up for a meeting with a colleague.

On Friday, the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders expressed ``great concern'' Friday over the disappearance and attacks.

[karpomrx]

If this murder occured in the good ol' USA, the authorities would have ruled it a suicide.

[Moses]

The actions of the drug gangs seem indistinguishable from that of the US military under Rumsfeld.

[Moses]

April 28, 2005

Pursuer of Mexican Leader's Opponent Quits Under Fire
By GINGER THOMPSON

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico, April 27 - The legal proceedings that threatened to knock Mexico's most popular politician off next year's presidential ballot and to plunge this country into turmoil seemed to come to a sudden end on Wednesday night, when a beleaguered President Vicente Fox announced the resignation of his attorney general and a review of the government's case against the politician.

In a nationally televised address, Mr. Fox said he had accepted the resignation of Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha, who oversaw the prosecution of the politician, Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico City, and thus became one of the most polarizing figures in the government.

Mr. Macedo de la Concha, a conservative brigadier general who previously served as chief of the military prosecutor's office, had been credited with dismantling some of the most powerful drug cartels but also criticized for using his office to intimidate President Fox's political adversaries.

His resignation was widely considered a kind of peace offering to Mayor López Obrador, whose political career was threatened three weeks ago when Congress voted to lift his official immunity and remove him from office so that he could stand trial in a land dispute.

Striking an uncharacteristically stiff posture and formal tone of voice, President Fox said he considered defending democracy his government's most important responsibility, and wanted to guarantee that next year's presidential elections would be fair, transparent and open to all qualified figures.

"It will always be better for our Mexico to stay open to dialogue, and not duels," Mr. Fox said. "Our goal is to conciliate, not divide. Our future as a country will be promising if we are capable of reaching agreement on that which is fundamental, instead of futile confrontations."

To most Mexicans, the case against Mayor López Obrador had little to do with law and order. They called it a conspiracy led by President Fox's conservative National Action Party in alliance with the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled this country for more than seven decades. Analysts from here to Washington and Wall Street denounced the case against the mayor as a threat to Mexico's fragile democracy.

The announcement comes only a few days after nearly one million people thronged the streets of the capital to protest the Fox government's campaign to prosecute Mr. López Obrador. The case against the mayor was based on a minor contempt of court charge for disobeying an order against the construction of a hospital access road. Still, it threatened the mayor's political career, and could have landed him, the leading contender to succeed Mr. Fox, in jail.

Mr. Fox, Mexico's first peacefully elected opposition president, had contended that the proceedings against Mayor López Obrador, a leftist street fighter of a politician who rose to power as a champion of the poor, was proof of the progress his government had made in establishing rule of law. No one, no matter how powerful, he said, stood above the law.

A majority of Mexicans, however, did not believe him. Since Mr. Fox came to power five years ago, his government has failed to live up to its promises to prosecute the multi-million-dollar scandals and violent massacres that were signatures of the old authoritarian rule.

"All transitions have a watershed, and this could be Mexico's," said Sergio Aguayo, who stood on the front lines of Mexico's struggle to reform its political system. "For me and many other people, this case was never about López Obrador. It was about the right to compete. It was about ideology, and the left standing up for change, because the right has failed to deliver what it promised. It was about power.

"What we learned was that President Fox's credentials as a democrat are not as strong as we believed and that the Mexican right is more reactionary than we ever imagined."

Manuel Camacho Solis, a federal legislator and political adviser to Mayor López Obrador, called the announcement by President Fox an "important victory."

"This is the fist step toward ending the assault against democracy," he said. "It is a decision that shows respect for the conscience of the people and puts us back on course for fair elections next year."

George Grayson, a political analyst who teaches government at the College of William and Mary and is writing a book on Mayor López Obrador, said the Fox government had virtually delivered the presidency to his party's leftist adversary. Polls published this week indicated that Mr. López Obrador had double-digit leads over all other leading contenders.

Indeed while the proceedings against the mayor, known as a desafuero, caused his popularity to soar, it plunged Mr. Fox's lackluster government into open conflict. In interviews earlier this week, aides to the president described the case against the mayor as an enormous mistake and said the president was looking for a way out.

The toll became clear Tuesday during a trip by Mr. Fox to Oaxaca State, in the south. After a lunch with business leaders and the governor, the president stopped to confront a young protester carrying a sign that described him as a "traitor to democracy."

Clearly agitated, the president asked over and over again for the protester to explain. The protester did not answer.

"I am not some traitor to democracy," Mr. Fox said. "On the contrary, I have worked for democracy for all."