DATE=2/11/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=MEXICO POLITICS (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-259081
BYLINE=GREG FLAKUS
DATELINE=MEXICO CITY
CONTENT=
VOICED AT=
INTRO: In Mexico City, a presidential candidate has
accused city government officials of instigating the
nearly ten-month-long strike at the National
Autonomous University of Mexico, known as UNAM. At
the same time, as VOA's Greg Flakus reports from
Mexico City, a city judge has taken action against two
other candidates whose campaign actions violated the
law.
TEXT: Although the strike at UNAM was ended Sunday
when federal police entered the campus and arrested
strike leaders, the controversy over the issue is
growing. On Friday, Porfirio Munoz Ledo, presidential
candidate of the party of the Authentic Mexican
Revolution, accused city officials of instigating the
UNAM strike. Mr. Munoz Ledo was a founding member of
the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or P-
R-D, which controls the city government,but he split
with the party late last year. He says P-R-D leaders
have been calling for the release of students who are
in jail because they are responsible for them being
there.
/// Munoz Ledo act (Spanish) ///
He says the student strike committee was financed with
funds from six city offices. And he charges the P-R-D
was involved in the student movement from the
beginning.
On Wednesday, P-R-D candidates and militants marched
along with some 20 thousand other people to the city
center to call for the release of strike leaders.
Critics accused them of mixing election politics into
the UNAM crisis, but party leaders say they were there
as a matter of principle and because parents of jailed
students had asked for their support.
Meantime, in the Mexican senate, another controversy
has arisen over an attorney paid with public funds as
an advisor to the P-R-D who is also representing the
jailed strike leaders. Senators from the ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI,
and the conservative National Action Party, say
attorney Raul Toledo's involvement with the strikers
is further proof of the link between them and the P-R-
D.
A P-R-D senator has promised to look into the matter
with party leaders.
Also on Friday, the PRI presidential candidate,
Francisco Labastida, and the PRI candidate for Mayor
of Mexico City, Jesus Silva Herzog, paid fines to a
city judge for having defaced public property. The
two candidates were caught on video tape earlier this
week painting campaign slogans on the wall of a
recreation center in the southeast part of the Federal
District. Their attorneys paid the fines of 416
pesos, equivalent to about forty-four US dollars. The
attorneys also brought photographs to show that the
graffitti had been removed and the wall repainted.
(Signed).
NEB/PT
11-Feb-2000 19:02 PM EDT (12-Feb-2000 0002 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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