Mexican President Vicente Fox (news - web sites), a strong advocate for a free market, faces growing demands to return to old state-run economic polices as he prepares for his fourth state-of-the-nation address amid protests against two decades of economic reforms.
About 50,000 union members, farmers and supporters of leftist Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador marched through downtown Mexico City on Tuesday to protest Fox's pension reform, practically the only economic change he's gotten through an opposition Congress. The reforms would make workers pay a larger percentage of their retirement.
But the anger went beyond the pension issue or Fox's stalled privatization plans.
"We Mexicans have suffered from the great majority of the economic 'reforms' of the last 20 years," read leaflets passed out by marchers. Throngs of farmers demanding more subsidies tossed pigs heads, manure and other animal parts at government offices.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=589&ncid=734&e=7&u=/ap/20040831/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_fox
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore