The PAN contingent intercepted the marchers just before they reached at the Televisa studios on Avenida Alemania, where Guzman was scheduled to do an interview.
Guzman’s supporters tried to block the march’s passage and cover up banners accusing Guzman of complicity in the August 2010 eviction of hundreds of residents and business people from Tenacatita.
Said one foreign resident who took part in the protest: “The PAN supporters came at us very aggressively. They began pushing us, tearing at our banners and trying to take them away from us. We crossed the street to be out of their way, but they followed us. Then they tried covering our banners with theirs.“(They) were almost all young. They were making lots of noise, jumping up and down, waving their flags in our faces and taunting us. We didn’t respond.”
Guzman was government secretary at the time of the eviction, which was carried out by state police after a ruling by a district judge favored a Guadalajara realtor over the local farm cooperative (ejido) in a decades-old land ownership dispute.
PAN officials later said the protest had been orchestrated by their election rivals and was mainly comprised of Guadalajara-based participants. This newspaper has confirmed that at least 45 of those taking part drove up to the city from the Tenacatita area.