Annual speech delayed in Mexico

MEXICO CITY – Mexican President Felipe Calderon turned over his first state-of-the-nation report to lawmakers on Saturday, but he became the second president in a row who failed to give the annual speech in Congress amid lingering anger over last year’s disputed election.

Calderon planned to address the nation today from the National Palace, avoiding a showdown with lawmakers who had vowed to prevent him from making the speech in Congress, as Mexican presidents traditionally do. After intense negotiations, opposition legislators agreed to let Calderon turn in his report at Congress’ podium.

Mexico’s Federal Electoral Tribunal declared Calderon the winner of the July 2006 race nearly a year ago, after two months of massive street protests led by leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who claimed that Calderon’s narrow electoral victory was fraudulent.

Calderon’s predecessor, Vicente Fox, was similarly blocked last year when leftist lawmakers stormed the stage of Congress and kept him from giving his final state-of-the-nation address. The lawmakers claimed Fox unfairly aided Calderon, of Fox’s conservative National Action Party. Fox denied those charges and instead gave his speech on television.

Lopez Obrador refused to recognize Calderon’s eventual victory and declared himself leader of a parallel government. But he has largely disappeared from the public eye amid sharp divisions within his leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party.

Calderon, meanwhile, has garnered some of the highest approval ratings in Mexico’s history with his war on drug trafficking and promises to create jobs.

About 200 protesters gathered in Mexico City’s central Zocalo square to voice their opposition to Calderon – far fewer than the tens of thousands mobilized by Lopez Obrador last summer as he made daily speeches alleging election fraud.