Bombs rattle Mexico in latest political strife

Bombs exploded at Mexican political and financial targets today, rattling a country already nervous about unrest in a poor southern…

Bombs exploded at Mexican political and financial targets today, rattling a country already nervous about unrest in a poor southern state and a deep political rift from an acrimonious election in July.

No one was injured in the blasts at Mexico's top electoral court, an opposition party's headquarters and a Canadian-owned bank in the capital.

A door was damaged and windows blown out at the electoral court, known as the Trife, which angered leftists in September for ruling that conservative candidate Felipe Calderon won July's presidential election.

Judges threw out claims of fraud by leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who called disruptive street protests. Glass and ceiling panels covered the floor of an annex building at the headquarters of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, near one of the city's main streets. Ulises Ruiz, the PRI governor of Oaxaca state, is embroiled in a five-month conflict with protesters demanding he resign.

READ MORE

Some 15 people have died and federal police clashed with demonstrators there last week. An explosion also tore apart the metal and glass facade of a branch of Canada's Scotiabank in the south of Mexico City and a fourth bomb at another bank failed to go off.

The foreign ministry was evacuated when a caller warned of a bomb there but it was a false alarm, a ministry source said. Mexico's peso dropped 0.73 per cent on news of the bombings but later recovered ground.