From Spain's El Pais, Sept. 9, via Chiapas95 (our translation):

The entrance of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD, leftist) into Mexico's institutional life, with the signing of an accord for reforms to the Law of Congress, is a bad sign for its ex-presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who maintains a resistance against the president-elect, Felipe Calderon, and the "invalid institutions." The governor of the state of Michoacan, the PRDista Lazaro Cardenas (son of the founder of the party), and that of Chiapas have recognized Calderon as the new executive.

The PRD legislators commenced work with the parties National Action (PAN, ruling) and Revolutionary Institutional (PRI) to move forward on legislative pacts. The first secured agreement guarantees that the PRD will preside in the in the House of Deputies and the Senate in the current legislature, which ends in 2009.

Although some deputies maintain that the accord does not mean a rejection of Lopez Obrador's resistance movement, it is certain that the differences in the heart of the PRD have become evident. The PRD governors of the states of Michoacan and Chiapas, Lazaro Cardenas and Juan Sabines, have recognized Calderon as president-elect. Lazaro is the son of Cuauhtemoc Ca'rdenas, founder and moral leader of the PRD, whose distance from Lopez Obrador is undisguisable.

Aditionally, the coalition For the Good of All, which supported the ex-candidate, is presenting its first fissures. The two other parties which make it up, Convergence and Labor, are showing signs of pulling out. Convergence, of social-democratic tendencies, maintains its support in the streets for Lopez Obrador, but has recognized Calderon, and is working institutionally in the legislature.

The Labor Party [Partido del Trabajo] has followed throughout the path of post-electoral conflict with Lopez Obrador, but has also taken its place at the dialogue table between the parties overseen by the institution that the PRD's ex-candidate has condemned to the Devil: the Secretariat of Government.

The leftist coalition is contemplating the dismantling of the protest camps that have invaded the historic center of the Mexican capital. Sources within the alliance say that the presence of sympathizers has diminished and that morale has deteriorated. The presence of the camps has caused controversy in the parties, and there are sectors that are considering the high political costs of maintaining them.

Note that Lopz Obrador's website is already calling him "president."

See our last posts on Mexico and the electoral crisis. See also our last posts on Michoacan and Chiapas.