Uncovering Mexico
Jeremy Schwartz is the Mexico correspondent for Cox Newspapers. He is based in Mexico City.What's on this page?
All the entries posted on December 01, 2006.
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Home > Uncovering Mexico > Archives > 2006 > December > 01
Friday, December 1, 2006
And so it begins …
It’s hard to describe the chaos inside the Mexican Congress this morning for Felipe Calderon’s inauguration. I arrived via the garage (after walking about a mile inside the heavily militarized perimeter) and was greeted to the scene of party officials from the left-leaning PRD running like madmen through the halls.
The officials were trying to support their legislators, who were on the congressional floor trying to block the inauguration, but guards wouldn’t let them inside. So they banged and kicked the glass of the locked doors and shouted slogans.
It was a jarring beginning to the day.
Things were even more chaotic and confusing on the floor of the Congress, where lawmakers had been camped out for three days in advance of the inauguration. Things were so tense that any movement sent security guards running up the crowded aisles. At least two fist-fights broke out, with congressmen diving into the melees like they were in a mosh pit at a punk show.
Many of us in the press section, amazed by what was unfolding in front of our eyes, doubted Calderon could pull off the inauguration. But he appeared in a lightning-quick, nearly military operation that lasted just a few minutes. Most of the stage was taken by his fellow party members, and legislators from the PRD never tried to get in Calderon’s way. They did, however, do their best to drown out Calderon with shouts of “Obrador!,” a nod to leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has formed a shadow government.