Students Chase Enrique Pena Nieto Out of a Mexico City University Manuel Rueda - Univision News | |
go to original May 12, 2012 |
Angry students chased Mexican presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto out of Mexico City’s Universidad Iberoamericana on Friday morning, marking the second public sign of discontent with the politician in less than 24 hours.
On Thursday night, some 80,000 people watching a free concert by former Beatle Paul McCartney, at Mexico City’s Zócalo square, spontaneously began to chant anti-Peña Nieto slogans towards the end of the concert, prompting Coca-Cola, the company broadcasting the event, to turn down the audio on its live web feed.
According to political analyst Hector Faya, the two recent protests against Peña Nieto reflect how his party, the PRI, has struggled to gain credibility with voters in Mexico City, where the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party or PRD, has consistenly won local elections since 1997.
Faya said, however, that Peña Nieto, the current frontrunner in the elections, continues to be popular in other parts of the country, and did not think that these incidents would greatly affect his campaign.
“These places [the Zócalo and Universidad Iberoamericana] are at the heart of PRD [territory]…they do not represent all of Mexico,” said Faya, who is also a professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana.
At the university this morning, students received Peña Nieto wearing masks of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the former Mexican president whose brother was put in jail for corruption, and who allegedly supports Peña Nieto’s campaign.
Peña Nieto exposed his plans for Mexico for around 20 minutes at the University’s auditorium, Reforma newspaper reports. He then participated in a Q & A session with students, and was heckled off the stage when he defended his decision to violently suppress protests in the town of Atenco in 2006, when he was governor of Mexico state.
According to Reforma, hundreds of protesters waited for Peña Nieto at the main entrance to the auditorium, prompting the PRI candidate to take the auditorium’s back door.
“Get out Peña Nieto, the Ibero doesn’t want you,” was one of the chants by students, who also called the candidate a “liar” and an “assassin.”
In an attempt to evade further controversy, Peña Nieto’s campaign team cancelled an interview they had planned to conduct with the University’s radio station, Radio Ibero, and immediately guided the candidate towards the parking lot.
But in their attempt to avoid the huge hoards of people waiting outside the auditorium, Peña Nieto and his team ended up walking around the university’s corridors for some 20 minutes, with smaller groups of protesters chasing them around.
At one point, according to Twitter users writing about the situation, Peña Nieto hid in one of the university’s bathrooms. We cannot confirm if this actually happened or if it was just a joke.
Professor Hector Faya said that he disagreed with the students’ behavior during Peña Nieto’s visit.
“I am in favor of the democratic process,” Faya said. “But as long as there is tolerance and some order.”
Peña Nieto currently has a 15 to 20 point lead in polls over leftist candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Conservative Josefina Vazquez Mota, who are virtually tied in second place.
Meanwhile, Beatriz Paredes, the PRI’s candidate for mayor of Mexico City — which is also holding elections on July 1st — trails PRD mayoral candidate Miguel Angel Mancera by 25 points in local polls.
Faya provided several reasons for the PRI’s lack of popularity in Mexico’s capital.
He said that in Mexico City, people have participated in democratic processes longer than elsewhere in the country, and they still resent the PRI’s seventy years of semi-autocratic rule.
“People have higher educations levels [in Mexico City],” Faya added, explaining that a majority of voters in this city have stuck with the PRD since 1997, because its governments in the city have shown positive results.
We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!
From activities like hiking, swimming, bike riding and yoga, to restaurants offering healthy menus, Vallarta-Nayarit is the ideal place to continue - or start - your healthy lifestyle routine.