100 Cardenas Supporters Rally at Mexican Consulate in L.A.

Holding aloft vividly colored banners and placards, about 100 supporters of opposition candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas rallied Sunday in front of the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles to proclaim Cardenas the winner of Mexico’s contentious presidential election.

The protesters, speaking in Spanish, condemned what they described as the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI) fraudulent efforts to stay in power by manipulating election results in favor of its candidate, Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

“We will not tolerate fraud any longer, regardless of where we are,” Isabel Vazquez said in an interview. Vazquez, representing a coalition of voting rights groups formed in California during the nine-month Mexican election season, referred to a letter in which Cardenas claimed victory based on tallies he said he received from government sources.

Salinas also has declared himself the winner, but the demonstrators urged Mexican citizens living in this country to voice their support of Cardenas, who left the PRI last year to run on the ticket of a coalition of leftist parties.

“We call on all Mexican nationals residing in the United States to pressure our government by calling their local consulates,” said a press release handed out by Vazquez on behalf of the Mexican Assembly for Voting Rights.

“We want the government to respect the decision of the people,” said Salvador Vasquez, president of Mexicans in Support of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas.

More than 100 people looked on as the protesters cheered pro-Cardenas speeches broadcast over bullhorns.