Mexico Independence Day: As President Enrique Pena Nieto Gives First ‘Cry Of Dolores’, Teachers Union Holds ‘Alternative March’

On Monday, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto gave his first "Cry of Dolores" - known in Mexico as the grito de independencia, or cry of independence - in commemoration of the 1810 speech by priest and Revolutionary leader Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla which kicked off Mexico's fight for independence from Spain. Peña Nieto stood on the balcony of the National Palace, ran down the list of national liberators and, capping it with the cry, "¡Viva México!", came to the edge of the balcony and swung a massive flag from side to side as the crowd watching from the square beneath roared. But the celebration comes in the midst of uncertain times for Mexico, where opinions on the president's push to pass a broad series of reforms meant to establish a strong centralized state remain divided.

Among the chief battles of Peña Nieto's time in office has been a reform of flagging state oil company Pemex, whose revenues supply the government with over a third of its budget, in order to allow foreign companies to profit from deep-sea and shale gas extraction projects contracted out by the government. Another, his educational reform, will now require teachers to take a national exam to become qualified and pass evaluations while in the classroom. The latter has seen one of Mexico's biggest teachers unions, the CNTE, convene tens of thousands of its members to shut down major thoroughfares and occupy plazas in the capital. On Monday, two days after members of the union who were occupying Mexico City's main square were evicted by federal police, the CNTE called for members and sympathizers to launch a "alternative march" at the same time as the traditional military march, and said that it intended to "retake" the square on Tuesday as soon as the festivities for independence day had concluded.

The president's "cry" was also marred by reports that his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) - which has been trying to shed its old image as a party of corrupt, old-style patronage politics to become that of the country's modernization - had resorted to busing in "supporters" paid with food and clothes to line the square. Some 15 buses were said to have disgorged in the main square about 600 people from impoverished districts and satellite cities of the capital to occupy the first rows, where they alternated shouts of "Peña! Peña! Peña!" with others like "Neza! Neza! Neza!", in apparent reference to the rough suburb of Nezahualcóyotl.

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