Mexico Hear The Voices of the Exterior

Report of Activities of the national Democratic Convention

2006-10-14T18:06:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters in USA, Canada and other countries,
Respected journalists and reporters,
Dear friends,

Several activities have been carried out by the National Democratic Convention, an ample social movement that includes people from several sectors of society here in Mexico and abroad, in the pursuit of a truly democratic state in which equality, social justice and genuine democracy are the foundation of our Nation. Here are some of the most relevant activities:

1. Letter sent to the organizations of Mexicans in USA, who are valiantly struggling to get their rights respected in a country that has been enriched by their hard work:

"Dear brothers and sisters,

We salute with great enthusiasm and respect your permanent and valiant struggle against the despicable treatment you endure as a result of the discriminatory policies from the most retrograde sectors within the government of the United States, a country that has benefited with the hard work, intelligence and creativity of all of you.

We are proud to join our strong protest to yours against the infamous wall the North American government has decided to build allegedly to stop Mexicans to enter their country.

The level of hypocrisy and cynicism exhibited by both, the Mexican and North American politicians currently in power, is simply insufferable and despicable! They know what we know: that the increasing number of brothers and sisters that are forced to leave their homeland and loved ones, is a direct result of the impoverishment caused by the ignominious NAFTA and neoliberalism.

You and us will continue this fight together, united, until the most cherished values like solidarity, empathy, mutual respect, become once more, the foundation of the nation we aspire to have.

Please receive our fraternal regards and may the March of the 14th be memorable,

Commission of International Media and Organizations
National Council of Civic Communicators
National Democratic Convention"

2. The following letter was sent to the Mexican Senate by the National Council of Civic Communicators, in support to APPO and Section 22 of Teachers in Oaxaca:

"TO THE SENATE OF THE MEXICAN REPUBLIC:

The members of the National Council of Civic Communicators, under Articles 6th and 7th of the Constitution of the Mexican United States, with offices at Calle 3 Oriente No. 68, Casa 1, Col. Isidro Fabela, Delegacion Tlalpan, appear before you to express:

That under Fraction V of Article 76 of our Mexican Constitution, this Legislature has the faculty and authority to intervene in the solution of the social conflict currently existing in the State of Oaxaca.

In light of the foregoing, we are requesting your urgent, responsible, respectful and peaceful intervention, under the law and, above all, taking the necessary steps for the solution of the demands, in the best interests of the population of Oaxaca, whose needs and rights have been grievously neglected by the current state government.

We all are aware of the ignominious poverty, abuse and repression that historically have been endured by the people in this region of our country. This situation is a direct result of the corruption and exploitation practices carried out by caciques and scoundrelly "public servants" who driven only by greed and lack of moral principles, have generated the current legitimate protests and opposition by ample impoverished and outraged sectors of the population in Oaxaca. The current crisis began with the demands from the 22nd Section of the National Union of Education Workers, which escalated to the current conflict due to the refusal of governor Ulises Ruiz to solve the justified demands of the teachers of Section 22.

Now, as a result of the disregard and irresponsible neglect by governor Ruiz, other groups have joined them and constituted the POPULAR ASSEMBLY OF THE OAXACA PEOPLES (APPO) that not only support the teachers' just demands but also their very own. However, due to the governor's irresponsible behavior, the social crisis has resulted in the demand of the resignation of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz as governor, as a firm and non negotiable condition to move forward with the conversations between APPO and the federal authorities to solve the situation.

As Senators of the Republic, you must be sensitive to this relevant historic moment and must strive for the solution of this just and reiterated demand in a satisfactory manner for APPO and Mexican society.

We have observed with deep concern the crisis in Oaxaca and we demand from you to act as authentic Senators Elect, for the good of Mexican society. We also demand of you to act as true Representatives of the Nation and, in this specific case, pay attention to the requests of the majority of the population of Oaxaca, who have amply sustained sound reasons for their demand of the resignation of an irresponsible and inefficient governor who does not warrant social peace and economic development of the State of Oaxaca.

This situation of total lack of accountability and inability of governor Ulises Ruiz, has led that region to a climate of total chaos which must be solved but in a sensible manner by all of you, Senators of the Republic , avoiding at all time the repression of the people of Oaxaca, which has always existed but which will seemingly intensify, with the serious repercussions that such undesirable decision would originate precisely at this time when millions of Mexicans are questioning the legality of the institutions.

This is not the moment to apply repressive measures, nor will it ever be. Instead, this is the moment for A SENSITIVE AND RESPECTFUL DIALOGUE FOR AN OPTIMAL SOLUTION OF THE CRISIS.

All Mexican people expect from all of you, the most sensitive and democratic intervention, and also political finesse and understanding of the problems of a population historically abused and exploited that can no longer endure the repression and neglect by a governor that has shown once and again his inability to rule and his profound disdain for the people of Oaxaca.

THIS IS THE TIME TO LEGISLATE BEFORE A SOCIETY THAT HAS EVOLVED NOTABLY AND THAT DEMANDS FROM YOU SENSIBILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY, AS WELL AS EMPATHY TOWARDS THE MISERY AND DISPAIR OF THE PEOPLE OF OAXACA. WE, THE CITIZENS, ARE WATCHING YOU AND WE EXPECT FROM ALL OF YOU FIRM EFFORTS FOR A RESPECTFUL DIALOGUE TO ATTEND THE NEEDS AND DEMANDS OF THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF OAXACA.

Mexican society has changed so we want from you a patriotic and just management of the situation, because we demand it and the Nation deserves it. You are our representatives, so we expect that you honor the SENATE OF THE REPUBLIC.

In virtue of all the foregoing, we respectfully demand of you:

FIRST: Acknowledge receipt of all the above considerations expressed by the National Council of Civic Communicators.

SECOND: To forward these requests to the Legislative Works Commission of the Senate, with copy to every and all senators of the Republic.

THIRD: To proceed with the highest sense of patriotism and political finesse in the solution of the demands of the People of Oaxaca, namely, the resignation of a governor that has clearly exhibited his lack of responsibility and inefficiency to rule his state, which does not guarantee now or in the future, social stability in Oaxaca.

FOURTH: Under Articles 8th and 35th, Fraction V of our Mexican Constitution and all other articles applicable, we expect your prompt and expedite response to the contents and requests of this letter.

Respectfully,

For the National Council of Civic Communicators:

Luis Alfonso Bartilotti Rodríguez
Luis Cisneros Lujan
Ma. de los Ángeles Huerta del Río
Patricia Barba Avila
Manuel Guerrero Ramos
Antonio Salyano Leyva"

3. There are other actions carried out by several Commissions like the screening of videos in parks and public places, about the fraudulent elections, repressive actions by the federal government against protesters and public demonstrations, along with the production of printed materials to inform the truth about the reasons for the National Democratic Convention led by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and the Coalition, with the support of ample sectors of Mexican society.

4. Actress and political activist Jesusa Rodriguez, who leads the Creative Resistance, headed last Sunday, one of several marches, which ended up in one of the Sanborns Restaurants owned by millionaire entrepreneur Carlos Slim, where we voiced our rejection of the attacks and disparaging statements against Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and the National Democratic Convention voiced by Mr. Slim in a recent speech.

5. Joint efforts by the National Democratic Convention and the organizations of Mexicans in USA and Canada against electoral fraud, and also the discriminatory and unfair policies by the right-wing and retrograde sectors in the United States, like the upcoming march on October 14.

6. Dozens of letters are being addressed to IFE in support of the request submitted to IFE by Professors John M. Ackerman and Irma Saldoval for a full ballot recount, under the Mexican Law of Transparency, which IFE has repeatedly refused.

7. A series of meetings and political gatherings in several states of Mexico to be organized shortly by the National Council of Civic Communicators, among other things, to promote activities in preparation for November 20th, when our Legitimate President Elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will assume the Presidency officially, after he was named the legitimate winner of the past election on July 2.

We will continue sending reports on future actions and will welcome all information you would like for us to broadcast,

Patricia Barba Avila
Commission of International Media and Organizations
National Council of Civic Communicators

Class struggle in Oaxaca, Mexico, raises people’s power

2006-10-14T17:57:00.000-07:00

Published Oct 13, 2006 10:20 PM
Revolutionary or mass political and social developments in Mexico are perhaps one of the most important signs that imperialism is in crisis. A question always on the minds of the U.S. ruling class is can imperialism detain and control the class struggle there, can it keep it from bursting into revolutionary upheaval that would inevitably spill over the border, forever changing the political landscape in this country.

So it is with great interest that progressives and revolutionaries monitor the events that have been sweeping Mexico in the recent period. A massive upsurge in Mexico City after fraudulent elections and the advent of people’s power in Oaxaca are two indications that Mexico is in the throes of a massive upheaval.

Which way it will go, no one knows. But the unfolding events are generating great optimism and excitement.

People’s power in Oaxaca

Some alternative media are calling the people’s occupation that has been taking place in Oaxaca since May 22 “the Oaxaca Commune.” They point out that the occupation in Oaxaca has lasted more than twice as long as the Paris Commune of 1871.

The movement against oppression and exploitation in this Mexican state has reached the level that some are saying there is now dual power in Oaxaca. The masses have occupied the center of government and are in control of much of the capital. The governor of the state, Ulises Ruíz Ortíz, who is the prime target of the protests, has, in the words of the Financial Times, been “forced to live out of a suitcase.” The Ruíz administration has gone underground.

The Financial Times declares that Oaxaca has been in a state of “anarchy” for several months.

Behind the crisis in Oaxaca

Oaxaca is one of the three poorest states in Mexico. The other two are Chiapas in southern Mexico and Guerrero on the Atlantic side. The population of Oaxaca is about 3.5 million. It has the largest number of people with indigenous ancestry, about two-thirds of the population. Oaxaca is Mexico’s most indigenous state, home to 17 distinct Indian cultures.

According to a Mexican human rights network, the richest 10 percent of households receive 13 times the income of the poorest 10 percent.

The 70,000 teachers who opened up the struggle with their strike are by far not the poorest. In fact, they can be considered part of the so-called middle class. They are members of the National Union of Educational Workers—El Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores Educativo (SNTE)—a large and powerful union but very much a company union, entrenched with the capitalist government historically.

But in Oaxaca the teachers are members of Section 22 of SNTE, which has much more of a radical and militant history. Their strike affects 14,000 schools. It was spurred on by Ruíz, who became governor in 2004 in elections that the people charge were fixed. He is accused of corruption and human rights abuses, brutally cracking down on protests, and encouraging the police to form paramilitary groups to squelch dissent and opposition.

The movement charges that Ruíz has ruled with excessively overt terror, carried out kidnappings and jailed people for no reason at all. Charges include torture, killings and impunity for those who carried out these atrocities.

For 25 years, the teachers have gone out on strike every May. But this year was different. The demands of the strikers resonated among a wider section of the population and a movement was sparked.

According to an article by George Salzman, between May 15 and June 17 demonstrations grew from about 50,000 to 400,000. When negotiations between the union and the government stalemated, the strikers and supporters began to occupy the center of the city. (Counterpunch, Aug. 30)

The strikers and their families, including children, along with many supporters, began to camp out. Business as usual was thoroughly disrupted.

The movement gelled to the point of forming a massive, statewide people’s assembly. A convention was organized. Out of it, the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) was born.

Independent news accounts report that protesters, grouped in more than 350 different social organizations, who had been camping out in the parks and on the streets for over four months, are governing through people’s assemblies. They have taken over radio stations and have expelled public officials from local government posts. Many protesters have armed themselves with sticks and slingshots. Local residents stand guard behind barriers of sandbags, rocks, scrap metal and burnt-out buses.

Buses have been commandeered—commercial, police and government vehicles—and are being used to block roads.

“Should federal troops attempt to wrest control of this southern capital from strikers, they’ll face scores of avenues like Calle Almendros, now a gantlet of obstacles designed to slow an advance. Strikers have prepared a 200-yard-long segment by stretching wires across it at neck, ankle and waist height, placing large rocks side-by-side and parking a commandeered school bus sideways to block traffic in both directions. Like many other streets, it has been fortified with small bunkers made of sandbags and stocked with dozens of bottles for Molotov cocktails. Hundreds of smaller rocks were piled up to be thrown or launched by slings.” (San Antonio Express-News, Oct. 4)

In another sign of people’s power, while TV Azteca was interviewing two lawmakers at a hotel, they were hustled out a back door, their departing car pelted with rocks. Unrest has scared most tourists away. Business leaders put losses at more than $300 million.

Crisis for the state

This incredibly untenable situation for the Mexican government takes place amid one of the biggest political scandals in decades. The July presidential elections were tainted with fraud and corruption. All indications are that popular candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador was cheated out of the presidency.

But he did not go back and hide in the corridors of government buildings. Instead, he embraced the mass movement. Since July millions of Mexicans have occupied the Zócalo square in Mexico City and have called for a parallel government headed by López Obrador, the true president of the people.

Militarizing Oaxaca

The situation in Oaxaca is very tense. Every day the possibility that federal troops could be called in to break up the movement becomes more real. APPO refused to attend talks in Mexico City on Oct. 4, called by out-going President Vicente Fox. There have been three failed attempts at talks between APPO and the government in the past few months.

Fox has declared the crisis will be over before a new president is inaugurated on Dec. 1.

On Oct. 1 Prensa Latina began to report a strong concentration of troops and military equipment nearing Oaxaca city. Planes flew over Oaxaca’s capital and at least 10 Puma helicopters and two Mexican Army transportation aircraft were parked at the Salina Cruz naval heliport in the international airport.

According to news broadcasts by local media, an indeterminate number of armored personnel carriers, tank commandos and four-wheel vehicles have been sighted, along with Marines. APPO considers the troop movement a prelude to federal intervention.

The troop movement takes place in a country whose history is filled with bloody repression. The people occupying Oaxaca’s central square know their lives are literally on the line.

“Compañeros, we don’t want anybody to die, but we’re ready to accept casualties if that’s the way the government wants it,” said one of the movement’s spokespersons on La Ley radio, which has been under the control of APPO since June.

On Radio 710 AM, a pleasant voice says keep calm, there are 3,000 people at each barricade, the troops are probably more afraid than we are, we are on our own turf and they are strangers here.

The helicopters are doing military reconnaissance and are certainly trying to terrorize. A press conference at 6:30 in the Zocalo by the APPO said pretty much the same: We’re ready. Keep calm, don’t give in to provocations.

When the helicopters landed, “¡Bienvenidos, cabrones!” “¡Bajen, aquí los esperamos!” were shouted at them by people carrying sticks and pipes. “Welcome, bastards! Come on down, we’re here waiting for you!”

At 9:00 p.m. on Oct. 7, Saturday night, the APPO closed off the historic downtown area, telling people who were caught away from home to pass as rapidly as possible through the barricades. APPO was determined to fight off any attack, asking people to unite in support, and at the same time telling those outside the city and around the state to organize their defense.

On Oct. 3, APPO issued a communiqué on behalf of the Encampment for Dignity and Against Repression in Oaxaca. It read in part: “The undersigned social organizations and Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) members make an urgent call to the people of Oaxaca, of Mexico, and of the world to come and form an ‘Encampment for Dignity and Against Repression in Oaxaca’; to come out and defend the Oaxacan people and avoid bloodshed due to the lack of vision on the part of our politicians.

“We cannot allow repression to be the solution. Let us all participate in the encampment for dignity and against repression dressed in white, as a clear signal that we are in favor of a peaceful movement and of a political and dignified resolution. Let us also go out into the streets with bandanas of different colors, to send the signal that we are a movement of many diverse actors that are willing to protect our compañeras and compañeros.”

Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista National Liberation Army stated: “Oaxaca is not just an emergency, it is also an example to follow.”

Leaders of López Obrador’s national movement pledged to mobilize their followers around the issue and go to Oaxaca as “human shields” in the event of a military intervention.

On Oct. 10, thousands of Oaxacans streamed into Mexico City after marching for several days to take their struggle into the capital. They marched about 300 miles but were not deterred. At least five of their compatriots have been killed since the strike.

U.S. on pins and needles

Not a single economic, political or social development occurs in Mexico without Washington not only paying close attention to it but also interfering so that each outcome is to imperialism’s benefit.

And so it must be with great trepidation that the Bush administration and the entire U.S. ruling class monitor the situation in Mexico today.

All history is the history of class struggle. Right now, the Mexican people are writing a page in history that is putting in jeopardy all those complex financial, agricultural, transportation and other capitalist relations that U.S. imperialism has fine-tuned so well in Mexico.

Despite NAFTA and the U.S. ability to manipulate a constant parade of Mexican leaders who “understand the need for friendly relations,” right now the workers’ struggle is taking center stage.

Once again history shows that the imperialists can write up their economic plans to reap super-profits, but when the masses rise up, those agreements can be thrown into the trash can of history where they belong.

All out to support the people of Oaxaca and all of Mexico.

A Report from South of the Border

2006-10-03T12:14:00.000-07:00

Mexico´s Political Dilemmas

By Fausto F. Ponte

Special to The DFallas Morning News

Editor´s note: Fausto Fernandez Ponte is a higly respected Mexican journalist who was

a Washington correspondent for the Mexico City daily Excelsior.

Mexico has now two Presidents. The Constitutional one -- thus named
President-Elect on Sept. 5th -- is Felipe Calderón, a conservative
lawyer linked to the political elite of moneyed and influential
businessmen and bankers, the Catholic Church, Wall Street, the energy
industry, and other assorted powerful interests. He has also been
linked to a violent rightwing group known as /El Yunque/ (/The Anvil/).

The other President -- the informal one, named Sept. 16 the
/Legitimate President/ by a massive meeting atended by more than a
million people in Mexico City´s main plaza, the historic Zocalo -- is
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, or AMLO, a political scientist whose main
theme is a set of proposals to lay the foundation for new State
institutions that would serve the interest of the 70 million Mexicans
living in poverty.

In spite of the Constitutional mantle, Mr. Calderón, however, does
not have the popular following that Mr. Lopez Obrador commands and
electrifies almost every evening with his colloquial speeches given from
his makeshift headquarters in Mexico City's Plaza of the Constitution.
He is protected by a thick, live wall of his followers. This human
wall is unarmed. And it is impossible to reach him.

But Mr. Calderon is also sorrounded by an even thicker human
fortress made up of Praetorian and well-armed guards known a
/Guardias Presidenciales/ (Presidential Guards). They answer only to
the President and not to the Defense Secretary, nominally the boss of
this elite and handsomely-paid military force in charge of the
President´s security. The Guards have been very busy lately for Mr.
Calderon is constantly accosted by Mr. Lopez Obrador followers every
day.

This dichotomy defines the current political crisis in Mexico and
its ever-increasing abyssal depth. Such a crisis is viewed by a very
large segment of Mexican society as a crisis of the State,
and of the power elite that has controlled it since the Carlos Salinas de
Gortari administration (1988-94). Mr. Salinas is a pragmatic
politician known for his cynicism and high profile as a
behind-the-scenes power or /facilitator,/ as he calls himself.

Mr. Salinas´ policies were epitomized by the North-American Free
Trade Agreement or NAFTA, which since its inception in 1994 has
dramatically increased economic inequality in Mexico as well as
social injustice. Its painful sequel is a
demonstrably spectacular emigration to the USA, fueled by growing
poverty, economic stratification, and lack of employment. Today
Mexican emigration is the main and most-contentious issue in the
bilateral relationship
between Washington and Mexico City. And it has a terrible social cost
in Mexico, mainly through the fracture and disintegration
of families. Children
grow up in a context of "anomia," which is the term used by Mexican
sociologists to describe a lack of correspondence between individuals
and the set of societal norms and rules. The net result is more
maladjusted youngsters and young adults, prone to conmit crimes.

In addition of the prevalent poverty, another clear indication of
the stagnation gripping the Mexican economy and society is the
deepening gulf between the "haves" and the "have nots".
Riches and income are highly concentrated in few people. The
acquisitive reach of income is scandalously low and getting lower.
The explosive and challenging component in this picture is awareness;
Many poor people are now aware of their poverty.

Rightly or not, those poor perceive Mr. Calderon
as the heir of those State policies perpetuating that
poverty. That makes a lot of citizens angry. It intensifies people´s
proclivity to feel resentment, discontent, and rage -- social rage.
These people feel prepared to go to the barricades to
fight for a change of Government and its policies, knowing that
Mexico´s constitutional framework (Article 39) acknowledges that
right.

This is a credible explanation of the current rage and outcry from
the bulk of Mr. Lopez Obrador´s followers and the intense activism of
the social and political organizations that support him. Those
organizations are busily proselytizing and building up a wide net for
logistical support. This way they reap more followers to feed the
massive mobilizations. There is a very fertile ground of anger and
desperation from this widespread awareness of what it is to be poor.

The plight of Mr. Lopez Obrador is based upon such constitutional
precept and thus it is a perfectly legal interstice. Against that, Mr
Calderón, the President-Elect, can do little, except to use force --
illegally, for Mr. Lopez Obrador and their millions of followers have
not broken any law. This stand off -- a proverbial Mexican stand off --
has no clear bifurcations or short cuts. On top of that, Mr. Calderon
has neither political insight nor crafty abilities in politics.

Meanwhile, Mr. Calderon sustains himself by his condition as
President-Elect, the long arm of the Office, and the controversial
and questioned legality of his elevation to Head of State. He romps
with the rich and powerful in Mexico and the USA, and avoids mixing
with the multitudes. It will take him several years of his administration
to create a political thesaurus. Mexico will be back to the old times
of Presidents that were not true leaders of the people.

Many Mexicans expect more domination of Mexico´s economy and energy assets by
USA multinational corporationss (in Mexico they are called transnationals) like
Halliburton, Wal-Mart, Citicorp, and others in the same
league; increased Mexican emigration mainly to California, Texas,
Arizona, New Mexico, but also to the Midwest. In the
aftermath of that it is predictable a reduced number of consumers of USA
goods and services in Mexico.

A Country with Three Presidents

2006-09-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

MEXICO:
A Country with Three Presidents
Diego Cevallos

http://www.pe.com/localnews/sanbernardino/stories/PE_News_Local_D_navarro18.3a435c3.html

MEXICO CITY, Sep 18 (IPS) - Mexico's left plans to re-lay the foundations of the country with a symbolic "government" chosen by its followers, working through social activism, and a party coalition acting through the country's institutions. The challenge it faces is to persuade the Mexican people, among whom approval of the left is declining, to support its goals and strategies, observers say.

The opposition movement, which is easily "big enough to force concessions from the regime," will catalyse "grievances of all varieties" and create difficulties for the government of the conservative president-elect, Felipe Calderón, to consolidate its power, Manuel Camacho, one of the leaders of the left, told IPS.

At an assembly dubbed the National Democratic Convention, which according to its organisers drew a million people together on Saturday in the capital, the left designated former Mexico City mayor Andrés López Obrador as the country's "legitimate president.." The former candidate lost the Jul. 2 elections because of fraud, his supporters say.

The Convention, born of a proposal set forth by López Obrador on Aug. 13, met for nearly four hours on Saturday and will reconvene on Mar. 21, 2007. Delegates from every Mexican state took part, some of whom had been elected in party assemblies, although anyone can register to participate.

Commissions will be set up to debate issues like national policy, civil resistance and proposals to rewrite the constitution. Despite predictions from the ruling National Action Party (PAN), the assembly was held without incidents.

So today, Mexico has an incumbent president, Vicente Fox, a president-elect, Calderón, who will take office in December, and a third proclaimed at a public meeting.

The proclamation of López Obrador as president was received in very different ways. Some observers considered it a farce, others greeted it with enthusiasm, and there were also those who saw it as something that could polarise Mexican society even further..

"The new leftwing movement is part of a process of identification that is highly valid in a democracy, but to go on to say that López Obrador is the legitimate president is quite a different thing," Silvia Alonso, head of the non-governmental Civic Alliance, told IPS.

"Although the present scenario is touchy, it opens up opportunities. Hopefully the right will recognise the role of the left, and manage to create an atmosphere conducive to reaching agreements," said the director of Civic Alliance, a group that has promoted social participation in public affairs since 1994, and acts as an independent observer in elections.

The Fox administration played down the left's strategy Monday, while the PAN, to which Calderón belongs, said that in refusing to recognise the established institutions, López Obrador was doing harm to the country.

There is only one constitutional president in Mexico and he is Fox, and there is a president-elect who is Calderón, so that "if any private citizen puts himself outside of our own laws (by declaring himself president), only he can take responsibility for that," said government spokesman Rubén Aguilar.

Miguel Granados, a columnist for the leftwing weekly Proceso, said that "instead of mocking or quaking in fear, the outgoing and incoming governments and their party" should make an effort "to understand the essence and the significance of this post-election period."

Granados maintains that the challenge faced by the left is for the "strong tide of citizens who follow López Obrador, who form part of, but not all of, the Mexican people," to persuade the rest of society to accept their goals.

López Obrador, the candidate of the Coalition for the Good of All, which brought together his Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) along with the small Convergencia and Trabajo parties -- and as of Thursday is known as the Progressive Broad Front -- won the votes of 20 percent of the 71.3 million Mexicans on the electoral roll in the July elections.

After his refusal to recognise defeat by Calderón -- who took 20.8 percent of the vote -- and his acts of resistance including the 48-day occupation by his supporters of the main Zócalo square and Reforma avenue in Mexico City, support for the left among the population has been waning, according to opinion polls.

"Even though the civil resistance he led has decreased his popularity, there is no doubt that he still has the support of several million Mexicans. If he is determined to destabilise the country, as he has threatened to do, there is good reason to believe that he would be able to do so," wrote a columnist for the newspaper Reforma, Sergio Sarmiento.

The only foreign government that has indicated that it will not recognise Calderón is that of Venezuela, whose President Hugo Chávez said that the right had perpetrated a fraud in Mexico.

But López Obrador says that to accept Calderón as president would go against his principles and the "true will of the people."

After being proclaimed "legitimate president," López Obrador said he accepted the symbolic post because it represents "an act of peaceful civil resistance," and a warning to his opponents "that they should learn to respect the will of the people."

He said he would take up the position in November and will appoint a cabinet. Together they will travel around the country and take note of the demands of the people. In some aspects, the proposal is similar to the shadow cabinets that function in certain democracies.

He will also mark Calderón's every move in an attempt to throw up obstacles for his administration.

The leader of the left believes that Calderón will be a spurious president, a "puppet of the right" as he has called him. He states that he will neither enter into discussions nor negotiate with Calderón nor with the PAN.

But leftwing political parties, legislators and local authorities, apparently, are willing to do so. Before the National Democratic Convention was held, the parties in the Coalition for the Good of All announced they would unite in a Progressive Broad Front.

Camacho, who served as foreign minister in the administration of Carlos Salinas (1988-1994) of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) -- which ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000 -- later became a close collaborator of López Obrador's. He explained that through the Front and the Convention, the left will push forward the political and economic changes that the country needs.

The former candidate will be a "legitimate president" who will take a critical stance towards the "legal president," but will be above all someone "who listens to the people, comforts them and provides leadership in the defence of their cause," he explained.

Meanwhile, the Progressive Broad Front will carry on the struggle within the institutions "against the opposite, rightwing pole."

Among the left's goals are to curb free trade and privatisation, and encourage the fight against poverty. It also wants to reform the constitution and the country's electoral institutions, which it sees as serving the interests of the economic elites. (END/2006)

Tribunal Fails Mexico's Nascent Democracy

2006-09-19T09:12:00.000-07:00

U.S.-Mexico Border
Tribunal Fails Mexico's Nascent Democracy
by Aldo Nicolás Mena

Regardless of whether you supported the candidacy of Felipe Calderón of the Partido de Accion Nacional [PAN] or the candidacy of Andres Manuel López Obrador of the Partido de la Revolucion Democratica [PRD], it's hard to feel optimistic about recent developments in the Mexican political system.

The problem started on August 5, when Mexico's top electoral court, the Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federacion [TFEPJ], ordered a partial recount of the official results of the disputed July 2 presidential election. Then, on August 28, the tribunal, commonly referred to as "El Trife," issued a ruling that largely dismissed the allegations of fraud that had been presented by the leftist candidate. Finally, on September 5, the tribunal, as expected, certified the results of the presidential election and officially recognized Calderón as Mexico's president-elect.

Unfortunately, in issuing this set of rulings, the tribunal has created a political crisis that has eroded the credibility of Mexico's electoral system and could potentially destabilize Mexico's nascent democracy.

To begin with, the tribunal has empowered the López Obrador movement, and virtually guaranteed continued civil unrest and political conflict in Mexico. López Obrador has made it abundantly clear that he will never recognize a government headed by Calderón. He has vowed to establish a form of parallel government, draft a new constitution, declare himself the legitimate [as opposed to legal] president.

He has also vowed to escalate his already formidable campaign of civil resistance. Since July 30, his supporters have managed to disrupt commerce and produce chaos in Mexico City by occupying the city's main plaza and sections of the city's elegant Paseo de la Reforma. His supporters in the legislature were able to prevent President Vicente Fox from delivering his final state-of-the-nation address, and are likely to disrupt Independence Day festivities as well as the inauguration of president-elect Calderón on December 1. There is even the possibility, however remote, that this movement could eventually turn violent, especially if the government attempts to defuse it with force.

Of course, the tribunal could have opted to defuse the entire situation early on by simply ordering a complete recount. The issue confronting the tribunal was clear: Were there enough irregularities and instances of fraud in the July 2 presidential election to warrant a recount of all 41 million votes? Unencumbered by any legal precedents, it enjoyed wide discretionary authority on this issue, and could have applied broader constitutional principles in resolving this issue. Instead, it chose to apply a strict and limited interpretation of electoral law.

Only a full recount could have definitively vanquished any doubts about which candidate actually won the presidency on July 2. As journalist and professor, Denise Dresser, explained in a Los Angeles Times editorial in July: "López Obrador, of course, has every right to legally question the results of a close election, just as the country has every right to demand that he respect its results. A vote-by-vote recount would leave him no recourse but to do so." More recently, Joy Olson, the Executive Director of the Washington Office on Latin America noted that: "Those who see this protest as a mere inconvenience and political posturing are missing the point. The protesters believe that the election was stolen from [López Obrador]. The historic, often personal, experience with past stolen elections gives added support [to] these beliefs."

The tribunal's decisions have also effectively denied Calderón the political mandate he will need to govern Mexico. He will assume the presidency of Mexico with the taint of illegitimacy. A full recount may have resulted in a victory for López Obrador, but it could have also firmly and unquestionably established Calderón as President Fox's legitimate successor.

Even President Fox's legacy has been compromised by the tribunal's decisions. Due to the political crisis that the tribunal's intransigence on these issues has produced, his departure from the presidency stands in stark contrast to his triumphant assumption of this office in 2000 when Mexico celebrated his victory over 71 years of authoritarianism. As it stands now, he finds himself embroiled in a seemingly intractable political crisis, and has the dubious distinction of being the first president in modern Mexican history not to deliver a state-of-the-nation address. In all likelihood, his presidency will end not with a bang but a whimper.

At this critical point in Mexico's political evolution, the members of the tribunal apparently failed to understand the nuances of the larger issue they were confronting. They failed to understand that Mexicans needed to be assured, perhaps now more than ever, that these elections were fair, and that Mexico had, in fact, evolved and entered a new era of democratic accountability. The tribunal failed to understand that this was not the time for decisions based on numeric calculations or legal technicalities. In short, the tribunal failed to understand that what Mexicans needed was certainty.

Ultimately, however, the tribunal has not only failed to understand and definitively resolve the larger issue of whether the July 2 presidential election was fair, it has failed Mexico's nascent democracy.

* * *

Aldo Nicolás Mena is a native El Pasoan, and a firm believer in the "necessity" of alternative media sources. He is co-founder of EagleandSerpent.org, a non-profit organization devoted to promoting an informed understanding of the Mexican political system in the United States, and publishes a blog that tracks political developments in Mexico entitled MexicoInFocus.com. He received his B.A. in English and Political Science, and his M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque. Please forward any inquiries or comments to: mexicoinfocus@terra.com.

CEPR ADDS UP AVAILABLE RECOUNT DATA, FINDS SIGNIFICANT VOTE REDUCTION FOR CALDERON

2006-09-04T07:28:00.000-07:00

Link: http://www.cepr.net/pressreleases/2006_09_02.htm

Result Could Explain Electoral Authorities' Reluctance to Release Recount Data
For Immediate Release: September 2, 2006

Contact: Mark Weisbrot, 202-746-7264
Dan Beeton, 202-293-5380 x 104; 202-256-6116 (cell)

WASHINGTON - The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) has found a significant loss of votes for PAN presidential candidate Felipe Calderón in a sample of recounted ballots.

Adding up the numbers for 1,706 ballot boxes (casillas) shows a loss of 1,362 votes for Felipe Calderón. Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the PBT shows a gain of 77 votes.

"This is inexplicably one-sided, with Calderón losing votes but López Obrador not losing any," said CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot. "It is also a significant percentage of votes in an election this close."

The 1,362 votes lost by Calderón represent 0.54 percent of his votes in these ballot boxes.

The result for the whole group of recounted ballot boxes would likely show a similar percentage, since the above ballot box totals were chosen randomly from the documents posted on the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary (TEPJF) web site. The ballot box totals compiled by CEPR comprise 14.4 percent of the 11,839 ballot boxes that were recounted.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) has been searching through many thousands of pages in 375 documents [www.trife.org.mx (see "Ãltimas sentencias dictadas")] released over the past week by the TEPJF, for numbers on the recount conducted by the TEPJF from August 9 to August 13. The process is laborious but most of the results appear to be buried in these documents.

In other words, the full recount results might be available but it takes several days of research to find and compile the numbers for 11,839 ballot boxes scattered among many thousands of pages of documents.

Although the recount was completed nearly three weeks ago, the TEPJF has refused to release the numbers showing how the candidates' vote totals were changed by the recount. This contrasts sharply to the procedure followed for the preliminary and second vote tallies in July, when the results were made public immediately.

"This certainly casts doubt on the electoral authorities' decision to reject a full recount," said Weisbrot. "And it makes the TEPJF's decision not to release the recounted vote totals look even worse."*

See also CEPR's most recent paper examining the "adding up" errors in the vote count: http://www.cepr.net/publications/mexico_discrepancies_2006_08.pdf

*Last Monday the TEPJF released the results of its annulment of 237,736 votes; many press accounts mistakenly reported these numbers as the results of the recount, which they were not. The ballot boxes where votes were annulled are not the same as those which were recounted. See http://www.trife.org.mx/consultas/boletines/archivos/079-2006.html.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research is an independent, nonpartisan think tank that was established to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people's lives. CEPR's Advisory Board of Economists includes Nobel Laureate economists Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz; Richard Freeman, Professor of Economics at Harvard University; and Eileen Appelbaum, Professor and Director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University.

###

Center for Economic and Policy Research, 1611 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20009
Phone: (202) 293-5380, Fax: (202) 588-1356, Home: www.cepr.net

Protest Keeps Fox From Giving State of the Union Speech

2006-09-02T08:49:00.000-07:00

September 2, 2006
Protest Keeps Fox From Giving State of the Union Speech
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
MEXICO CITY, Sept. 1 — Leftist lawmakers who have charged that fraud marred the presidential election in July staged a protest inside Congress that prevented President Vicente Fox from making his final state of the union speech to lawmakers on Friday, ending a tense day of political brinksmanship here.

Federal riot police officers and soldiers with water cannons had sealed off the Mexican Congress with miles of steel fence to protect Mr. Fox from thousands of leftist protesters camped out in the city’s center.

The president had vowed he would give his last state of the union message, despite threats from the leftist candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and his followers to stop him.

At the last minute, however, Mr. López Obrador backed down. In front of at least 5,000 supporters in the capital’s central square, Mr. López Obrador, the former mayor of this sprawling city, told his followers it would be a mistake to confront the barricades and the police surrounding Congress. He said the “fascist” government of Mr. Fox would seize on any clashes between the police and the protesters to justify the brutal repression of his movement.

“We are not going to fall into any trap, we are not going to fall into any provocation,” he told the crowd, which had waited through a rainstorm to hear him speak. “Only those who are not in the right resort to force and violence, and we are in the right.”

Still, lawmakers from Mr. López Obrador’s Democratic Revolution Party protested inside the Chamber of Deputies, taking over the podium just before President Fox was to speak at 7 p.m. Several waved Mexican flags and signs calling Mr. Fox “a traitor to democracy.” The president of the chamber, Deputy Jorge Zermiño, was forced to call a recess.

Mr. Fox arrived 15 minutes later. As he entered the chamber, wearing the traditional red, white and green presidential sash, leaders of his party said it would be impossible for him to speak. He dropped off his yearly report, turned on his heel and left.

At 9 p.m., the government broadcast a recorded version of the president’s speech, complete with pictures of happy citizens to illustrate the gains his government has made in housing, education and health care.

Mr. Fox staunchly defended the balance of powers and the government institutions Mr. López Obrador claims are corrupt, notably the Federal Election Institute and the electoral tribunal. He also stressed that the rule of law was the basis of democracy and he took a veiled shot at Mr. López Obrador, saying “no one should try to corral democracy through intransigence and violence.”

“Whoever attacks our laws and institutions, attacks our history, attacks Mexico,” he said.

Mr. López Obrador claims he won the election, even though an official count, vetted by the country’s highest electoral tribunal, showed that the candidate from Mr. Fox’s National Action Party, Felipe Calderón, eked out a razor-thin victory.

Rather than concede, Mr. López Obrador has promised to convene his own national assembly and set up a parallel government this month. He has said that he will never recognize Mr. Calderón’s victory and has declared that Mr. Fox violated Mexican election law by campaigning for Mr. Calderón, as did various business leaders who spent millions on attack ads against Mr. López Obrador in the last days of the campaign.

He also claimed that his opponents stuffed ballot boxes with votes for Mr. Calderón and disposed of votes for him in some states, a charge Mr. Calderón’s aides called absurd.

On Friday, at least 6,000 police officers in riot gear ringed the congressional building with steel barricades and blocked nearby subway stations to discourage demonstrations. Before the lawmakers’ protest, the only demonstration occurred just before 6 p.m., when a small group from the Francisco Villa Popular Front, a militant group allied with Mr. López Obrador, painted antigovernment slogans on the fence and threw rocks at the wall and at the police, who ignored them.

For more than a month, thousands of Mr. López Obrador’s supporters have blocked the major avenue running through the city, Paseo de la Reforma, and camped out in the main square, Plaza de la Constitution.

Newly elected lawmakers from Mr. López Obrador’s party arrived en masse at the legislative building about 1 p.m., broke through one of the barricades, marched into the chamber and denounced the presence of the president’s federal police.

“This is unforgivable,” announced Senator Carlos Navarette. “The chambers should not be invaded by the federal police. This is the house of the deputies, not of the president.”

Mr. Navarette later led the protest among the lawmakers, denouncing the ring of police officers outside as an infringement on Mexicans’ right to protest as his partisans rushed the dais and occupied it.

Earlier this week, an electoral tribunal charged with ratifying the election and resolving challenges threw out most of Mr. López Obrador’s arguments that there was widespread fraud. The court still must rule on his request to annul the election on grounds that the president and private businesses interfered too much in the campaign.

Aides to Mr. López Obrador said he had acknowledged privately that the court would probably name Mr. Calderón president-elect next week.

What form Mr. López Obrador’s protest movement will now take remains unclear, but it is certain to keep him in the public eye for the next six years and make it hard for Mr. Calderón to govern.

“He’s saying to the government, ‘Everything that I am going to do is going to give you trouble,’ ” a close adviser said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Antonio Betancourt and Marc Lacey contributed reporting for this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/02/world/americas/02mexico.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=americas&pagewanted=print

Mexican President Forced Off Podium

2006-09-02T02:17:00.000-07:00

12:47 pm, 02 Sep 2006
Mexican President Vicente Fox abandoned his state of the nation speech this afternoon after leftist lawmakers claiming fraud at elections in July seized the podium in the Congress.

President Fox handed a written version of his speech to Congress officials and said he was leaving the building without trying to deliver the address.

Dozens of legislators marched up to the podium, some with banners calling Fox a traitor to democracy.

The Speaker ordered a recess after the lawmakers refused to return to their seats.

The left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution accuses Fox of complicity in a massive fraud at the July 2nd presidential election to give victory to conservative ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon.

© NewsRoom 2006

Globe and Mail

2006-09-02T02:16:00.000-07:00

The Mexican reality
ARNO KOPECKY

Edmonton -- To note that Mexico's electoral process was "revamped in the 1990s" seems a facile dismissal of recent history -- namely,

seven uninterrupted decades of rigged elections (Mexico's Sore Loser -- editorial, Aug. 30). As a journalist who has lived and worked in Mexico's southern state of Oaxaca, I can personally attest to the ongoing fact of vote fraud in at least some parts of the country.

The much-quoted European Union observers who approved the election did so because they focused on the voting booths. But in Mexico, fraud occurs elsewhere, when party representatives purchase the votes of entire rural communities with a few sacks of corn and a tractor or two. Other observers, such as California-based Global Exchange, are aware of this and have supported Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's position.

As for the "independence" of the federal electoral tribunal, one wonders how one of its judges, Fernando Ojest, could say four days ago: "We can tell people that today their votes were worth something and that they are definitive." It appears that, despite having yet to examine all of Mr. Obrador's allegations, this court's objectivity didn't prevent it from making up its mind in advance.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060901.LETTERS01-6/TPStory/Comment
Print Edition - Section Front
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MEXICO: Huge political crisis rocks country

2006-08-27T22:21:00.000-07:00

Peter Gellert, Mexico City

Following presidential elections widely viewed as marred by fraud, Mexico’s political crisis not only shows no signs of being resolved, but in fact is intensifying almost daily.

In the six weeks since the July 2 presidential elections, two sides have squared off. On one side are the federal government, its electoral authorities, and the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and its candidate Felipe Calderon, defending their razor-thin 0.6% margin of victory as the legitimate election results. On the other side are the For the Good of All coalition headed by the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), its candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (known as AMLO) and the social sectors and mass organisations of most of the left and progressive movements.

Given the close vote and AMLO’s charges of electoral fraud, a partial recount of 9% of the country’s 131,000 polling stations was ordered by the Federal Electoral Tribunal. AMLO and his supporters, however, have been demanding a 100% recount. The recount, which began on August 9, has not resolved the dispute. The AMLO forces charge serious discrepancies, even on the basis of the small 9% sample, among them:

In 43% of the sample, Calderon had been accredited with more votes than he actually received, lowering his total number of votes by 13,500. This was 5000% more votes than AMLO lost in the recount.

In 65% of the recounted polling stations, there were either more ballots deposited than there were voters or more voters than there were corresponding ballots. In Mexico, control of the paper ballots is extremely strict. In the 9% of the polling stations that were recounted, these discrepancies involved 120,000 ballots — half the difference between the two candidates nationwide across all the polling stations.

More than 30% of the supposedly sealed ballot boxes had been opened after the elections, raising the spectre that their contents were altered.
With the official difference being about two votes per ballot box, AMLO has insisted on a full recount and nullifying results in the 7600 polling stations of the 9% sample that had discrepancies. If the polling stations showing too many or too few ballots in the partial recount were to be annulled, AMLO would win the elections.

While the evidence of fraud is circumstantial, it is also strong and, given Mexico’s tradition of fraudulent elections, AMLO’s charges are considered by many to be credible. A poll by the conservative daily Reforma indicated that 65% of Mexico City residents feel fraud was committed and that all votes should be recounted.

The PRD also charges that Mexican electoral law was violated prior to election day by incumbent President Vicente Fox’s support for Calderon’s campaign, by a particularly vicious media campaign against AMLO (attempting to tie him to Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez), and by business associations illegally placing advertisements on television implicitly attacking the PRD candidate.

Although electoral authorities often forced an end to such practices, the damage had already been done and the punishment was so ridiculously minimal that there was no deterrent to further infractions.

On August 18, a video was played on Mexican television demonstrating the existence of a plot against AMLO involving top-level government officials, PAN leaders and Argentine-Mexican businessperson Carlos Ahumada, who is under investigation for fraud committed against the Mexico City administration. The City Prosecutor’s Office announced it would file penal charges against federal government officials who protected or helped Ahumada.

In addition to myriad legal challenges, the PRD and AMLO have waged a mass campaign in the streets demanding a full recount. Demonstrations take place on an almost daily basis. On July 30, up to 2.4 million people participated in the largest demonstration in Mexico’s history.

While the PRD and the junior partners in its electoral coalition make no claims to be socialist or revolutionary, they have nonetheless mounted a strong campaign against electoral fraud and have refused to “negotiate” a solution with the national government.

Since July 30, thousands of demonstrators have been camped out in Mexico City’s central square and an eight-kilometre stretch along Reforma avenue, a main city artery. Federal police have cordoned off the area around parliament with tanks. All of this has considerably exacerbated the city’s already nightmarish traffic.

Besides the continuing occupation of downtown Mexico City, thousands of Lopez Obrador supporters are also engaged in daily acts of civil resistance.

The PAN and business associations have called on the Mexico City government — which is headed by the PRD — to evict the protesters, however local officials have refused. The mass media has waged a campaign against the protests, attempting to whip up a backlash among middle class residents inconvenienced by the mammoth traffic jams.

As a next step, AMLO has called for the formation of the National Democratic Convention on September 16 (Independence Day) to unite grassroots and social organisations behind a program not just centred on electoral democracy, but also addressing the country’s social problems.

Many far left and social organisations that didn’t participate in AMLO’s campaign are involved in the anti-fraud protests. Along the eight kilometre stretch of encampments, a wide array of neighbourhood associations, unions, student groups and political organisations can be found.

Unfortunately, the Other Campaign, an initiative launched by the Zapatista National Liberation Army and headed by the charismatic Subcomandante Marcos, while condemning the fraud, has abstained from the mass demonstrations. During the election campaign, the Other Campaign centred most of its fire on AMLO and the obvious deficiencies in the PRD’s program and methods. Some organisations that participated in the Other Campaign are, however, involved in the anti-fraud protests.

If Calderon is declared the victor by the Federal Electoral Tribunal on August 31 — which most view as the likely outcome — from the word go the new government will face a bitterly divided country, with major sectors of the population questioning the government’s legitimacy and huge and powerful mass movements that consider it their declared adversary.

Major battles are clearly on the horizon in Mexico.

From Green Left Weekly, August 30, 2006.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

En espera de la imposición anunciada

2006-08-25T11:11:00.001-07:00

Viernes 25 de agosto de 2006
Economia Moral
Julio Boltvinik
En espera de la imposición anunciada
Guanajuato, capital del fraude, según muestra análisis del recuentoLa economía moral es convocada a existir como resistencia a la economía del "libre mercado": el alza del precio del pan puede equilibrar la oferta y la demanda de pan, pero no resuelve el hambre de la gente

Confirmando lo anticipado a los medios, el presidente de la Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación (SCJN) rechazó "como evidentemente improcedente" la demanda, firmada por más de 16 mil ciudadanos para que, en atención a lo señalado en el artículo 97 de la Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, ejerciese su facultad investigadora para determinar si hubo violación al voto público en las pasadas elecciones presidenciales. Sin embargo, el asunto no acaba ahí, pues ante el recurso de inconformidad interpuesto, la decisión de la SCJN tendrá que ser colectiva. De esta manera se encuentran ya involucrados en la decisión sobre las elecciones los dos órganos supremos del Poder Judicial: la SCJN y el Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación (TEPJF). Ambos cargarán con el peso de lo que decidan, y en el caso de la SCJN, incluso si deja que transcurra el tiempo para no decidir, lo hará por omisión.
Mientras, sigamos analizando las evidencias disponibles sobre el fraude electoral. Por cortesía de amigos de la izquierda mexicana, he recibido la base de datos del recuento parcial ordenado por el TEPJF, que ha elaborado el equipo de AMLO ante la opacidad informativa del tribunal y que contiene la información de las casi 12 mil casillas con los resultados del recuento de los votos por partido, de los votos nulos, por candidatos no registrados, y de las boletas sobrantes. Esta base de datos ha permitido al equipo de AMLO obtener comparaciones por distrito y por entidad federativa de los resultados entre el recuento y el conteo distrital (CD). La base de datos contiene 11 mil 763, es decir, 109 casillas menos que el recuento total, que no habían podido capturar.
En el CD las casillas recontadas registraron un total de 3 millones 861 mil 446 votos (incluyendo nulos y para candidatos no registrados), total que disminuyó en 10 mil 667 votos para quedar en 3 millones 850 mil 799 en el recuento. Este cambio parece pequeño, sólo 0.276 por ciento, menos de la mitad de la supuesta ventaja de Felipe Calderón (FC) respecto a AMLO. Sin embargo, resulta de la suma algebraica entre los votos adicionales obtenidos en el recuento (votos subestimados en el CD) en algunas casillas y votos que no aparecieron en el recuento (inflados en el CD) en otras casillas, que fueron de 38 mil 8 y 48 mil 655 respectivamente. Por tanto, la masa de errores o trampas, sólo en el total de los votos, sin entrar todavía al desglose entre partidos ni al respaldo de los votos en boletas, fue de 86 mil 663 votos, equivalentes a 7.4 votos por casilla y al 2.25 por ciento de los votos totales del recuento.
Se trata de errores gigantescos, de orden de magnitud similar al error estadístico en encuestas con muestras muy pequeñas. Los que alegan que no hubo dolo ni fraude tendrían que aceptar que un sistema electoral que se equivoca en más de 2 por ciento del total de votos es un sistema inservible, incapaz de discernir al ganador en elecciones cerradas y que, por tanto, tendría que anularse la elección presidencial. Pero veamos qué pasó en los votos por partido.
FC tuvo una pérdida neta de 13 mil 335 votos como resultado del recuento y AMLO una pérdida neta de 43 votos, habiéndose en consecuencia reducido la distancia entre ambos en 13 mil 292 votos que representan 0.35 por ciento de los totales del recuento, lo que equivale a una reducción de la ventaja de FC de 1.14 votos por casilla, lo que resulta muy sustancial si se recuerda que la supuesta ventaja de FC es de 1.87 por casilla a nivel nacional. Sin embargo, las pérdidas netas de ambos candidatos son el resultado de la suma algebraica de sus ganancias y pérdidas. FC perdió 19 mil 110 votos (es decir, en el CD su votación estaba inflada en esa cantidad) y ganó, en otras casillas, 5 mil 775 votos (es decir, en ellas su votación estaba subestimada en el CD). Las cifras respectivas para AMLO son 6 mil 205 y 6 mil 162. Otra vez, si fueran errores, serían gigantescos, particularmente en el caso de FC, con errores totales de 24 mil 885 votos, equivalentes a 2.14 votos por casilla en promedio, y a 1.33 por ciento de su votación total.
Sorpresivamente, los mayores errores porcentuales, y muy sustanciales errores absolutos, se encuentran en los votos asignados a los nuevos partidos, a los no registrados y a los votos declarados nulos, como se muestra de manera sintética en el cuadro anexo. Los votos nulos pasaron de 75 mil 977 en el CD a 78 mil 430 en recuento, un aumento neto de 2 mil 453 que representa el 3.1 por ciento del total. Otra vez, sin embargo, este aumento neto es la suma algebraica de 11 mil 288 adiciones y 8 mil 835 eliminaciones ocurridas en diferentes casillas. Esto significa que en el CD hubo errores referidos a votos nulos por un total de 20 mil 123, equivalentes a 1.72 por casilla y a 25.7 por ciento (¡más de la cuarta parte!) del total de votos nulos del recuento. Si este nivel de errores se mantuviera a nivel nacional, y no hay ninguna razón para suponer que no sea así, donde según el CD se anularon 904 mil 604 votos, habría habido errores por 232 mil 483 votos (anulados indebidamente o dados por buenos cuando debieron anularse) cifra muy cercana a la supuesta ventaja de FC.
En el CD se contaron mil 905 votos de menos a candidatos no registrados, lo que asciende a 6 por ciento de la votación total, mientras la suma de errores representa 24.7 por ciento, otra vez la cuarta parte del total (véase cuadro). Los votos por Patricia Mercado también estaban subestimados en mil 836 en el CD, y la suma de errores en su caso asciende a 4 por ciento de su votación. Como se aprecia, estaban subestimados en el CD los votos nulos, los dirigidos a candidatos no registrados y a Mercado. En cambio, los votos por Roberto Campa estaban sobrestimados en mil 578, 3.8 por ciento de su votación, y sus errores totales suman 9 por ciento de su votación. Los votos por Roberto Madrazo, en cambio, estaban sobrestimados en el CD en 0.2 por ciento, aunque la suma de errores es de 1.6 por ciento.
Si a este panorama añadimos los resultados antes proporcionados para FC y AMLO, queda claro que: 1) los mayores errores (o trampas) en números absolutos y por casilla están en los votos por Calderón y en los nulos (ambos suman más de la mitad del total), seguidos por los de Madrazo y AMLO. Sin embargo, los errores como porcentaje de la votación son mucho más elevados entre los votos nulos, los no registrados y Campa. No parece haber, pues, un comportamiento regido por las reglas del azar que son las que prevalecen en los errores humanos pero no en la acción dolosa, acentuándose así las evidencias de fraude.
La base de datos y las tabulaciones realizadas por el equipo de AMLO permiten también analizar por entidad federativa y distrito los resultados del recuento. Nuevamente, si las diferencias entre el CD y el recuento se explicaran por errores humanos, las diferencias entre entidades federativas se repartirían de manera proporcional al número de casillas o al número de votos en ellas instaladas o emitidos. No es así. De las poco menos de 12 mil casillas recontadas, casi una cuarta parte (22.8 por ciento) se localizaron en Jalisco, seguido muy de lejos por Baja California (9.6 por ciento) y Tamaulipas (8 por ciento). En estas tres entidades federativas se llevó a cabo el recuento de 40.4 por ciento de las casillas y esperaría uno encontrar en ellas una proporción cercana de los errores identificados, si fueran errores. En cambio, en Guanajuato se recontaron únicamente 317 casillas (2.7 por ciento del total) y en ellas esperaría uno encontrar una proporción igualmente baja de los errores. En ambos casos la evidencia se mueve en sentido contrario.
Analicemos el comportamiento de los errores en los votos para FC y para AMLO en las casillas recontadas en Guanajuato. En primer lugar, de los votos netos perdidos por Calderón (indicación de la sobreestimación efectuada en el CD) ascendieron a 3 mil 508, 26.3 por ciento del total, muy por debajo de lo esperado en la suma de las tres entidades federativas con mayor número de casillas. En agudo contraste, en Guanajuato, donde sólo se recontó 2.7 por ciento de las casillas, FC tiene una pérdida neta de 6 mil 103 votos, muy por arriba de los votos perdidos en las tres entidades, que representa 45.8 por ciento del total del recuento ordenado por el TEPJF y 19.3 votos por casilla. Este acontecimiento no puede ocurrir nunca por azar. El fraude en Guanajuato es brutal, lo que se sospechaba desde que uno miraba las cifras del CD, según las cuales FC obtuvo en Guanajuato 58.9 por ciento de los votos y arrasó en todos los distritos. Si la sobrestimación por casilla en el conteo distrital se expande a toda la entidad, resulta que en una sola entidad federativa el registro oficial de los votos por FC estaría inflado en 118 mil votos, casi la mitad de su supuesta ventaja nacional.
Una conclusión similar , aunque menos drástica, se obtiene si se analizan los errores de más y de menos a favor de FC, ya que esta suma, de 6 mil 515 votos en Guanajuato es mayor que la de Jalisco (5 mil 836) a pesar que las casillas recontadas en la segunda son 8.5 veces mayores que en la primera. Pero no sólo eso. La asimetría en los errores a favor y en contra de FC son muy contrastantes entre Guanajuato y las tres entidades que venimos usando de ejemplo. En Guanajuato los votos perdidos por FC al hacerse el recuento son 31 veces más altos que los que ganó, mientras son 2.2 veces en Baja California, 2.1 en Jalisco y 3.2 en Tamaulipas. Como lo sabe cualquier persona que haya pasado por un curso elemental de estadística, las proporciones en estas tres entidades también son imposibles como resultado de errores, que se cometen con las reglas del azar. Pero el caso de Guanajuato es de escándalo.
Todo lo anterior se obtiene solamente mostrando lo que en el desplegado de la semana pasada, la coalición Por el Bien de Todos llamó un resultado secundario del recuento, y que en efecto puede verse así ya que supone que los votos encontrados en los paquetes electorales son el "reflejo palpitante de la voluntad de los electores". Sabemos que no es así y que en alrededor de la mitad de las casillas hay inconsistencias entre las boletas recibidas en la casilla y la suma de la votación total y las boletas sobrantes, como lo analicé en la entrega anterior de Economía Moral (18/8/06).
jbolt@colmex.mx
© Derechos Reservados 1996-2005 DEMOS, Desarrollo de Medios, S.A. de C.V.Todos los Derechos Reservados.Derechos de Autor 04-2005-011817321500-203.

En espera de la imposición anunciada

2006-08-25T11:11:00.000-07:00

Was the Mexican Election Stolen? Questions Raised Over Results From Preliminary Recount

2006-08-25T00:13:00.000-07:00

Thursday, August 24th, 2006

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/24/1425237

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As protests for Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador continue in Mexico, we take a look at the country’s contested presidential election. Mexico’s Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research’s says Mexico’s handling of the recount raises questions about the lack of transparency in the recount and the election. [includes rush transcript]

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In Mexico, President Vicente Fox said this week that his ruling party ally, Felipe Calderon, was the "clear winner" of the country’s disputed presidential election. His comments came ten days before Mexico"s top electoral court is to rule on fraud claims brought by populist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Fox also warned against what he called "extremist" and "messianic" politics in a clear criticism of Lopez Obrador who has launched massive demonstrations over the past few weeks to press for a full ballot-by-ballot recount of the vote. Official tally results in July put Calderon ahead by two hundred forty thousand votes - or just over half a percentage point. Lopez Obrador soon filed claims challenging the results alleging fraud and government interference.

Supporters of Lopez Obrador have brought the capital to a virtual standstill over the past few weeks with round-the-clock protest camps, blocking streets and launching demonstrations. The electoral court has to rule on the fraud claims by the end of the month and name a new president by September 6th.

The Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research recently conducted an analysis (PDF) of Mexico’s recounted ballots that raises questions about the lack of transparency in the recount.

Mark Weisbrot, co-director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC.

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AMY GOODMAN: The Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research recently conducted an analysis of Mexico's recounted ballots that raises questions about the lack of transparency in the recount. We're joined now by the group's co-director Mark Weisbrot. We welcome you to Democracy Now!

MARK WEISBROT: Thank you. It’s good to be here.

AMY GOODMAN: What did you find?

MARK WEISBROT: Well, we looked at the first recount, which they didn't really release the results very well of that either, and that was only 2.2% that they recounted. But they've since recounted 9%, and they won't tell us what the results of those are. And that’s, I think, a major violation of basic transparency.

But also we do know certain things. I mean, we've analyzed the data. For example, the Lopez Obrador campaign has claimed that in the majority, the vast majority of the ballot boxes, the ballots were not really kept track of. So each ballot box gets a certain amount of ballots. And then, the total votes plus the leftover blanks are supposed to add up to the ballots that you got at the beginning of the election. And that didn't add up for the majority of the ballot boxes. So right there, and we verified that by just analyzing the data that's available. And so, that's true, and that, by itself -- and that's why it's so strange for the President of the country to say that it's extremist or to even declare that there's a winner, when you have -- more than half of the ballot boxes don't add up. And that by itself is enough of a reason to have a full recount, even aside from all the other irregularities, and there's quite a few.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And this issue of the recount that was done, of this 9% of the ballots, it's been now, what, a couple of weeks since they completed that recount? And the political parties had observers there, so they all have their versions of what happened there. But there's no official announcement yet of these results?

MARK WEISBROT: No. And I think, again, that's deliberate, because right now we have the two versions. If you take Lopez Obrador's version, which I think is probably true, they said that Calderon lost 13,000 votes, which is about 1% of his total, and Lopez Obrador didn’t lose any. So if you look at the media reports, they say 5,000 to 7,000. But either way, that's a lot, and it's clearly going only one way. In other words, the recount showed that only one side had votes that were thrown out in the partial recount. Again, another very big reason to do a full recount and another reason, I think, why they're not releasing the results, because if everybody got to see the results of this partial recount, they might be forced -- they might have public pressure to do a full recount.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And these massive demonstrations that have been occurring now in Mexico City for weeks, they have gotten very little coverage here in the United States. I’m thinking back to when the massive protests in the Ukraine and some of the other Russian republics over allegations of election fraud. But there hasn't been much coverage here in the U.S. press of these protests right with our southern neighbor.

MARK WEISBROT: No. Not very much. And especially the allegations, like the one I just said before. That's not even allegation. That's a verifiable fact, that you have the majority of ballot boxes where the votes don’t add up, the ballots aren't kept track of. So that hasn’t -- the media hasn't made an issue out of that. And they haven't made any issue out of the fact that the tribunal is withholding the results. And I’m actually worried that they're going to not even wait until the August 31 deadline. They’re going to announce the result before the public gets to see what happened in the two recounts that they already did.

AMY GOODMAN: What does this mean for the future of Mexico?

MARK WEISBROT: Well, I think it's huge. I mean, the issues in this election are very big. Mexico has had a terrible economic failure over the last 25 years. The total economic growth has been about 17% per capita over a 25-year period, as opposed to 99% from 1960 to 1980. And it's been a terrible failure, a terrible economic failure.

AMY GOODMAN: We have ten seconds, unfortunately.

MARK WEISBROT: So this is really -- there's two competing candidates with two competing visions of economic policy and what they're going do for poor people in this country.

AMY GOODMAN: And do you think Lopez Obrador will ever concede? Do you think he could be declared the victor?

MARK WEISBROT: It's possible. It depends again on if there's public pressure to do a full recount or to nullify the results of the election. I don't think they would have even gotten the partial recount if he hadn't brought over a million people into the streets.

AMY GOODMAN: Mark Weisbrot, I want to thank you for being with us, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington.

Battle for Mexico's democratic soul

2006-08-23T11:40:00.000-07:00

By Franc Contreras BBC News, Mexico City
Politics has often been a violent affair in Mexico. And after decades of virtual one-party rule, July's parliamentary election has caused bitter recrimination.
Some have called outgoing president Vicente Fox a "traitor to democracy", allowing his party's candidate, Felipe Calderon, to win. The row highlights the cynicism most Mexicans feel towards their politicians and institutions.
I got word last week that there would be yet another massive demonstration in the capitol's main square, the Zocalo.
Out in the street I realised that I had put on a white shirt and blue jeans. Blue and white are the colours of the conservative right candidate, Felipe Calderon. The rally I'd be attending would be filled with people who disdain him.
They are die-hard supporters of the centre-left candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whose colours are yellow and black. I quickly changed my shirt and went downtown.
'Wanted criminal'
By the time I got to the Zocalo, the side streets leading up to it were jammed, once again, with angry people demanding a full recount of all the ballots in the July presidential election.
Since 2000 Mexico has been changing dramatically
Many carried signs declaring President Vicente Fox "a traitor to democracy". They believe he orchestrated the election to favour his party's conservative candidate, Felipe Calderon.
People in the crowd held up posters, declaring the top election official "a wanted criminal".
Most of Mr Lopez Obrador's supporters are poor Mexicans who truly believe that election fraud took place here, and this, for them, is nothing less than a battle for Mexico's democratic soul.
One woman in the crowd told me, "What do we have to lose by being here? Our pay checks barely allow us to pay the rent and keep our children fed and clothed."
She reminded me that Mr Lopez Obrador has promised to make the poor his top priority. But that pledge won't matter much, unless he becomes the president.
It has been a difficult prospect all along. Last year, government officials from Mr Fox's administration tried to charge the leftist candidate with a minor crime.
By attempting to convict him, they would have stripped him of his right to run for public office. But international pressure came down on the Fox administration and the case was thrown out.
Pragmatic mayor
During the presidential campaign, Mr Lopez Obrador's rivals compared him to Venezuela's firebrand leftist president, Hugo Chavez. Mr Calderon's television ads regularly labelled the leftist politician as "a danger to Mexico".
That struck me as deeply exaggerated and clearly designed to manipulate public opinion. The Federal Electoral Tribunal agreed, and forced Mr Calderon to remove the ads from TV.
I've been living in Mexico City for 10 years. During the last four, Mr Lopez Obrador was mayor here. He showed himself to be at least as pragmatic as his conservative rival.
Both men know that they cannot ignore business interests or the growing throngs of poverty-stricken Mexicans.
As I waded deeper into the crowd, I felt very claustrophobic - pressed up against a stone wall. The crowd kept coming. I called out, "keep calm, keep calm, don't push." It was more a message to myself as my anxiety grew.
Mr Lopez Obrador began his speech with charismatic words, reminding his faithful followers of the historic inequalities they have suffered over generations.
He called for a full recount. Only then, he said could fellow Mexicans rest assured that the election was fair.
Mr Lopez Obrador has shown the world that he can call his supporters out in huge numbers when he wants to. And that they can paralyse key parts of the city's financial district.
Lack of faith
But his talent for organising explains only part of the reason why his followers take to the streets this way.
The unspoken factor in all this is the deeply-rooted lack of trust that Mexicans have in their government, officials and institutions. Sure, this is common feeling around the world. But Mexicans' lack of faith seems especially acute.
It can be found from the northern deserts on the US border to the country's tropical regions and in the deep, indigenous south near the border with Guatemala.
This is part of the legacy of more than 70 years of single-party rule. Citizens would know a year before each election who their next president would be.
Invariably, he would belong to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. The party used all manner of fraudulent techniques to win 16 consecutive presidential elections.
The regime got so good at it, that Mexicans created a special vocabulary for vote fraud. Ballot boxes stuffed with PRI votes were called pregnant urns. A folder containing ballots for the ruling party's candidate was called a "taco".
Moment of truth
After the historic presidential election in 2000, voters peacefully brought an end to that regime. That was unprecedented. Since the Spanish Conquest, regime change in Mexico had always been a violent business.
Since 2000 the country has been changing dramatically. It is still in a process of maturing and desperately trying to consolidate its democracy.
In a way the current stalemate is a test for the Mexican people themselves. This is their moment of truth.
If the judges rule that Mr Calderon is the winner, will large sections of Mexican society believe them? Or will they take to the streets and make it impossible for him to govern?
Everyone is talking about what happens next. But right now, what matters most is whether Mexicans have faith in the judicial process and whether they will have to think twice about what colours to wear on their next trip downtown.
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Is Mexico Nearing an Election Resolution?

2006-08-22T20:11:00.000-07:00

With Deadline Approaching, Runner-up Remains Defiant

John M. Ackerman
Professor, Institute for Legal Research, National Autonomous University of Mexico
Wednesday, August 9, 2006; 12:00 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/08/08/DI2006080800873_pf.html

John Ackerman, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico's Institute for Legal Research, was online Wednesday, Aug. 9, at noon ET to discuss the impact of continuing protests in Mexico City in support of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and a refusal by Mexico's election tribunal to conduct a full vote recount.

Felipe Calderón has declared himself the winner of Mexico's July 2 presidential elections , despite his opponent's refusal to concede . For the past week, López Obrador has lived in a tent in Mexico City's Zocalo square along with tens of thousands of demonstrators. López Obrador has said he will not accept the results of a partial recount, even after a special election court rejected his request for a full recount. The court must declare a winner by Sept. 6.

Protests escalated as the partial recount was set to begin, with Mexican leftists blockading the offices of three major foreign-owned banks , and briefly taking over highway toll booths .

Ackerman has written for various publications, including the New York Times and Mexico's Reforma newspaper. He is a senior consultant to the World Bank and vice president of the International Association of Administrative Law. He is also coordinator of the Research Program on Accountability, Legality and the Rule of Law at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Mexico City.

Read commentary by Ackerman in The San Diego Union-Tribune , The Houston Chronicle , and Revista Proceso (in Spanish)(pdf).

The transcript follows.

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Ceci Connolly: Welcome to today's live chat with John Ackerman, a legal scholar on Mexican politics. Before we open up the conversation to your questions, I'd like to thank John for joining us and ask you: Does the partial recount beginning today in Mexico suggest the end is near for Andrés Manuel López Obrador?

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John Ackerman: The partial recount the Tribunal called for on Saturday is indeed very bad news for López Obrador. Although the Tribunal could theoretically still call for a full recount later and this would be entirely legal, the arguments which the justices offered on Saturday would make this extremely difficult.

This is highly problematic because if serious irregularities are discovered in the partial recount there will be increased social demands for a full recount. But, in this case, pretty much the only option the justices have left for themselves is to "annul" or simply not declare the election valid and call for new elections.

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Mexico City, Mexico: Mr. Ackerman: the Mexican government and it's electoral institutions have failed to make this election a democratically solid and reliable process. Now the answer from the left is also barely legal, and illegal in some cases. From your point of view, Is there any way that future actions from the government and from the opposition could allow Mexican people to recover (if there ever was any) the trust and belief in the electoral process and it's public institutions?

John Ackerman: Really the best solution is a full recount. This is not at all a radical demand being made by López Obrador. It is basic common sense in an election which is as close as this one. The Electoral Tribunal would be entirely within its legal jurisdiction to call for such a full recount and this is really the only way to reconstruct faith in Mexico's electoral institutions. Otherwise, a cloud of doubt will remain hanging over things and this will make things extremely difficult for Mexican politics.

The other option is a "citizen recount" after the election is over. This would not have legal standing, but if it confirmed the electoral authorities results it would greatly legitimate the election. On the other hand, if it came up with a different result, this could lead to serious political crisis. The best answer would be for the Tribunal to change its criteria and call for a full recount ASAP.

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West Orange, N.J.: An August 6 WP article states that López Obrador trails by about 240,000 votes or about 0.5% of the votes cast. It says nothing about any evidence of alleged fraud. Are there many districts were gross vote counts were suspiciously high or low? In the PRI era, ballots could be 95%+ (or maybe more than 100%, counting the dead) in favor of the official candidate. Did the first count of the 2006 ballot feature any overt signs of shenanigans? Are the odds high or low that a full recount would yield a materially different outcome?

washingtonpost.com: Mexican Runner-Up Remains Defiant

John Ackerman: The question of whether there was outright fraud or not is still up in the air. López Obrador has made some pretty important allegations and there are enough apparent irregularities in the vote count and in surrounding events (tell tale phone calls and e-mails between government officials and political operators) that there is a reasonable doubt with regard to the election results.

A full recount would clarify things once and for all and calm down the political situation significantly.

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Ceci Connolly: For those interested in the recount process which began this morning, here's an excellent overview from El Universal. http://www.mexiconews.com.mx/19756.html

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Bethesda, Md.: As someone who used to live in Mexico City, but doesn't have first-hand experience of recent events, I'd like to know a couple of things about the protests by AMLO supporters: Is there a different mood among the protestors than there was after Cardenas' contested defeat in the late 1980's? Do some AMLO voters believe he should accept the official results, or do all of them want to fight on? What stretch of Reforma does the encampment cover -- from the Angel to the Zocalo? More? Less? And are the people in the encampment mostly being cheered on, or booed, by encampment neighbors and passersby? Thanks.

John Ackerman: Thanks for your questions. I wasn't here in 1988, but from what people have told me there is much more hope now among the AMLO supporters than in 1988 that they might actually be successful this time. People consistently state that now they have a "real" leader who is organizing resistance, not like Cardenas who supposedly left the movement hanging in 1988.

The encampment goes far beyond the Angel, all the way to the Fuente de Petroleos in the exclusive Lomas section of town. They are both booed and cheered, depending on what section of Reforma you are on.

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Guadalajara, Mexico: You make the statement that: "a Felipe Calderón presidency will hold a weak hand in dealing with the Mexican Congress, where his party only has a minority." Wouldn't this be equally true if López Obrador was declared president of Mexico? While López Obrador calls for a full recount, is it not true that he only petitioned the TRIFE for a full recount in only a few areas of the country?

John Ackerman: Yes, of course. Either way, the incoming president will have to conduct major political negotiations with Congress.

The López Obrador challenge to the election has two prongs to it. On the one hand, he challenged tens of thousands of particular voting booths. On the other hand, he has challenged the election as a whole, calling for a full recount to clear up any and all doubts.

On Saturday the Tribunal threw out the general challenge as a reason to conduct a full recount (although these arguments still could be used later to annul the election as a whole). The Tribunal decided to follow an extremely limited, strict interpretation of the law and only review Obrador's challenges of specific voting booths.

This itself was a political (although legal) decision on the part of the Tribunal. They could have easily called for a full recount based on AMLO's more general claims.

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Cancun, Mexico: Greg Palast has been putting out a series of what I consider very poorly researched articles on the Mexican election. In his latest he finally acknowledges the clarity of the ballots themselves and the fact that they were filled out and counted manually. He continues to harp on why the million (actually around 820,000) null votes are not being counted. I don't believe that this was one of demands in the PRD's legal brief, which according to what I've read was deficient in more than one technical aspect. Could you explain this and also brief us on what exactly the PRD asked for in its complaint with the electoral court? I'd also like to know your opinion on charges by columnist Carlos Ramirez that many protestors are being paid by Mexico City construction companies, who he writes are also financially supporting the demonstrations in other ways in return for promises by the PRD that they will get building contracts.

John Ackerman: One of the arguments the PRD did offer for the full recount is the high number of null votes and evidence from the partial recounts that have been conducted that many of these were actually for López Obrador. This is part of the second prong of the challenge which puts into question the election as a whole and calls for a full recount.

I haven't seen Carlos Ramirez's charges, but this sounds extremely unlikely.

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Queretaro, Mexico: 1. Isn't it unfair to compare the 1988 elections to today's situation? After all, in 1988, the IFE did not exist and votes were counted by the Secretaría de Gobernación. 2. Why is it important that Calderón accept a full recount? This decision is not made based on political negotiation, but by the Electoral Tribunal. 3. Isn't it true that the questionable practices that López Obrador provided evidence for are the basis for the partial recount ordered by the court of those voting places? What evidence is there that there was fraud in the rest of them?

John Ackerman: Good questions. The institutional conditions are indeed very different between 1988 and 2006, and this should have assured an un questionable election. Unfortunately, the present IFE councilors were not appointed by consensus (the PRD was excluded) and they have been less than entirely free of suspicion in the way they have acted.

And if they decide to burn the ballots after the electoral process is over in order to prevent citizens from conducting their own recount we will be right back in 1988.

Calderón is the one who would gain the most from a full recount. This is perhaps the only way he will be able to come in with significant legitimacy to manage Mexico's government.

Once again, you don't have to accept the accusations of fraud to support the idea of a full recount. The full recount is needed precisely so that we can see whether there was fraud or not. The central issue is the transparency of the election.

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Marquette, Mich.: López Obrador has refused to label himself a populist, but to what extent do he and his supporters fit into the growing movement across Latin America that has seen the election of presidential candidates such as Chavez and Morales?

John Ackerman: The support for López Obrador is definitely parallel to the support for other leftist presidents throughout Latin America (not just Chavez and Morales, but also Vasquez, Lula, Bachelet and Kirchner) in so far as it reflects widespread frustration with the failure of the economic reforms of the past two decades.

But López Obrador is an extremely pragmatic politician. The fact that he believes in the welfare state and things that U.S. citizens take for granted like unemployment insurance and public education does not make him a "danger" for the U.S. or Mexico. Indeed, such policies may be exactly what Mexico needs to stop the tide of emigration to the United States.

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Marquette, Mich.: If Calderón is declared the winner, does he plan to continue the existing neoliberal policies? And if López Obrador wins, do you imagine a sharp departure from Mexico's current economic policies (specifically in relation to the United States)?

John Ackerman: Calderón has expressed a clear message of continuity with Fox's policies. He will continue along the same line.

López Obrador would not make a radical break and is not at all "anti-U.S.". He is just a pragmatist who believes in the importance of social justice. No radical break, but definitely important changes.

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Elma, N.Y.: Does López Obrador have sufficient evidence of miscounted votes to call into question the close election victory of his opponent? And is the evidence strong enough to challenge the fairness of the election laws which significantly restrict when you can call for a recount?

John Ackerman: I think so. There is a reasonable doubt about the election results. Enough to justify a full recount. The Mexican constitution, electoral law and the court's jurisprudence would all permit such an action. It is simply incorrect to say that a full recount would be illegal.

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Washington, D.C.: Does the inability of protesters to create hysteria, if that's the case, basically mean a resolution is approaching? Is their a point when the PRD controlled Mexico City tell Obrador to pack up his tent and go home?

John Ackerman: These next few days will be absolutely crucial. The partial recount began today and must finish before this Sunday. I doubt the Mexico City government will step in, but the federal government has been threatening to do so.

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Oaxaca, Mexico: The city of Oaxaca de Juarez is under the control of a group demanding the removal of the governor of Oaxaca state. They also control the state television and radio stations and many government offices. Do you see a tie-in between this movement and AMLO's? What possibility do you see for a general uprising of the poor in Mexico?

John Ackerman: Don't see any direct connection between the situation in Oaxaca and AMLO, although both situations reveal the failings of the present governments (state and federal) to satisfy the basic demands of the poor.

Don't think there will be anything like a "revolution", but discontent may indeed spread if the economy doesn't start to pick up.

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Greeley, Colo.: The democratic formula is 50 % + 1. In the Mexican presidential elections, None of the candidates reached that percentage. How can they even discuss who the winner of the election is when there are no clear indications how they can govern. Shouldn't they form a coalition with other political parties-forces in order to govern?

John Ackerman: Yes. This whole situation reveals the urgent need to reform the electoral and state structures in Mexico. The country definitely needs run-off elections as well as possibly a move towards a pseudo-parliamentary form of government.

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Tucson, Ariz.: How would an upset by López Obrador affect foreign-owned property in Mexico? Would he try to create a "Mexico for Mexicans" kind of country where property was repossessed by the state?

John Ackerman: No. Not at all. He is definitely in favor of foreign investment and the free market. His top economic adviser, Rogelio Ramírez de la O., is a serious, pragmatic guy. No worries here.

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Pedro, Chihuahua, Mexico: Do you expect serious irregularities to be found in the recount?

John Ackerman: It is quite likely that the margin between Calderón and AMLO will become much smaller.

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Burke, Va.: What is your prediction of what will happen if the partial recount is held and there is no change?

John Ackerman: Calderón would be quickly and quietly confirmed by the Electoral Tribunal and AMLO would try to lead a nationwide social movement against neoliberalism.

Hopefully, the IFE would also allow the "citizen recount" to take place. This would help allot to shed light on the election and calm the political situation.

_______________________

Oaxaca, Mexico: Thank you for this discussion. What is your opinion of the involvement of Elba Esther Gordillo in the electoral process? Have you seen the allegations that she diverted educational funds for pro PAN campaigning?

John Ackerman: Very worrisome. Elba Ester Gordillo's (old guard PRIsta union leader) participation is the dark side of the Calderón campaign. If there were serious irregularities they most likely can be attributed to her.

_______________________

New York, N.Y.: Professor Ackerman, The Fox administration had a difficult time passing structural reforms in a divided congress. Regardless of the winner, do you expect the narrow margin to erode an already weak presidential mandate?

John Ackerman: Definitely.

_______________________

Tucson, Ariz.: I understand from friends in Sonora, the north Mexican state south of Arizona, that the same U.S. political group which was instrumental in gaining the election of Bush through various shenanigans, lost votes, uncounted votes, shortages of ballots, etc was also involved in Calderon's win. Is this true?

John Ackerman: I have heard this as well, but don't have any solid sources. All the more reason for a full recount, so as to make sure this didn't happen.

_______________________

Takoma Park, Md.: On July 3, the IFE said that it had counted 99% of the vote. On July 4, it admitted that it had been unable to include 2.5 million votes (roughly 6%). Is there an innocent explanation for this? I sure can't think of one.

John Ackerman: Well, supposedly the parties all new about the "archivo de inconsistencias", but the IFE should have announced this publicly. The fact that they didn't and falsely declared that 99% of the votes had been counted definitely created widespread suspicion.

_______________________

Mexico: Professor Ackerman, I'm studying here in Mexico City. It seems to me that AMLO is the victim of a stolen election. It's obvious that his opponents didn't want him to run and tried T prevent it. Then they tried to link him with Hugo Chavez. This "leftist" as the American press refers to him has massive popular support. Most news sources here are slanted to the right and only seem to report on how disruptive the protest is. If the election is handed to Calderón, I think a revolution is quite possible. Do you agree?

John Ackerman: Definitely don't think a revolution will occur, but if the Tribunal simply rubber stamps the IFE results Calderón will definitely have an extremely difficult time governing.

_______________________

Berlin, Germany: Isn't a complete recount in either way inevitable? In case the outcome doesn't change and Calderón is declared winner AMLO probably won't simply give in but raise pressure on the streets until a full recount will be held. On the other hand, if Calderón will loose the partial recount wouldn't it be logical for him to call for a complete recount?

John Ackerman: A full recount would definitely be in the interests of both candidates and for Mexico as a whole. As you point out, if Calderón turned out to come out behind after this partial recount he would be the first to call for an expansion of the recount!

_______________________

West Orange, N.J.: Assuming that a full recount yields a variance in the total tally greater than the spread between the candidates, aren't both likely to call for new elections? Would this be a two-way run-off? Who would benefit most from votes won by PRI in the original ballot? To what extend are blank or mutilated ballots a factor? Does Mexico's congress have the power to pick a winner in a disputed contest?

John Ackerman: A new election is a very possible scenario. This would not be a two-way run-off, but a competition between all parties if they offered candidates (unless of course electoral law were reformed in the meantime).

There are indeed lots of null votes in this election. Enough to make the difference if a recount were conducted.

The Mexican Congress has no power over the elections. Although if the election were thrown out it would be responsible for naming an interim president.

_______________________

Atlanta, Ga.: One of the points made by the Electoral Tribunal judges in explaining their Saturday ruling on the partial recount is that in the vast majority of polling stations they ordered recounted, the main problem was that the number of recorded votes exceeded the number of recorded voters. The judges then further clarified that the polling officials from IFE had all the authority they needed to recount when there was such clear evidence of simple arithmetic errors. In a tense situation which depends so heavily on trust by parties and voters, why do you think the IFE so clearly (in the view of the judges) fell down on the job by refusing to recount in those thousands and thousands of stations? Did they not realize that by not recounting where there were obvious, obvious errors that they would sow distrust?

John Ackerman: Yes, this was a major mistake of the IFE and did sow wider suspicion about their behavior.

_______________________

Ceci Connolly: I'd like to thank John Ackerman for giving us an hour of his valuable time today. We apologize that not every question could be answered. For more on this never-ending election, tune in to Campaign Conexion http://blog.washingtonpost.com/mexicovotes/. Thanks again!

_______________________

RECOUNTS PROVED FRAUD IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

2006-08-19T14:33:00.000-07:00

DOWNLOadews from original available at http://s5.quicksharing.com/v/1148315/Recount_Finds_Fraud_in_Mexican_Election.doc.html

Background
Election
The July 2nd Mexican presidential election has been hotly disputed on the Net, in the courts, and upon streets. Preliminary results were broadcast live to the Internet allowing for unprecedented analysis that showed immediate statistical problems.[1] Subsequent vote tallies showed even more widespread irregularities and discrepancies.
Of 117,287 polling places, 72,197 sites reported tally sheets that did not add up. These errors throw into dispute 62% of the vote. Some polling sites reported more votes than ballots resulting in the addition of 898,862 votes. Other sites reported fewer votes than ballots eliminating 722,326 votes. As a result, the electoral system could not account for a total of 1,621,188 votes.
The difference between the two candidates—Felipe Calderón of the PAN and López Obrador of the PRD—was only 243,000 votes or 0.58% of the tally. Consequently, the tally-sheet irregularities and polling discrepancies were more than enough to throw the election.
Aftermath
Although there was an immediate demand for a recount, the opposition resisted and the electoral system dragged its feet. As a result the PRD prosecuted its case in the courts, before the media, and upon the streets with non-violent demonstrations.[2]
These demonstrations have been the largest and longest lived in Mexico's history. The marches in Mexico City alone have had upwards of 2.4 million people occupying the central two-kilometer core of the city and stretching down the main city avenue—La Reforma—for over ten kilometers.[3]
The protestors then camped out, paralyzing the capital. Almost a month later, tens of thousands still occupy the central core and the most important arteries of the city. The current encampment runs from the central plaza, or Zócalo, down the Avenida Reforma to the Fountain of Petroleos on the Periférico beltway. On the Avenida Hidalgo, it encompasses the downtown central park, of La Alameda and runs down Hidalgo to the Zócalo in a swath flanked by Francisco and Madero.[4]
These crowds and their candidate have demanded a full recount of the 62% of the polling places showing irregularities. The opposition has been adamant that no recount was necessary. The Electoral Tribunal has been slow to act for either party. It has refused to certify the election, but must do so by September 6th. Last week, it agreed to a partial recount, but it was unwilling to recount more than 9% of the polling places.
Today, the nation hangs at a chaotic inflection point. The Electoral Tribunal reported the results of its limited recount. Police fired tear gas at opposition-party senators and then shoved and beat them in front of the Chamber of Deputies.[5]

Recount finds Fraud
The Upper Chamber of the Electoral Tribunal—a division of Mexican Department of Justice—has concluded its recount of 9% of polling places from the July 2nd presidential election. This recount proves that in this election there was organized, systematic, and massive fraud. The recount has found hundreds of thousands of votes that were introduced or subtracted illegally in the voting boxes as well as thousands of falsified tallies. This fraud changed the real results of the citizens' vote and has led to a usurpation and frustration of the popular will.
Five results
First result
Goal
The Tribunal had one central aim when it ordered a review of one in seven of the 72,197 disputed polling places. It sought to determine whether the discrepancies found in the tally sheets were either
A) The result of arithmetic errors fixable by the recount itself or
B) The result of serious irregularities that could not be dismissed
The recount has found that a majority of the tally-sheet problems are not arithmetic. They result from either the introduction or subtraction of votes. In Mexico, the verb for ballot stuffing is se taquearon, as ballots are stuffed like a taco. The verb for robbing votes is the same as in the USA, se robaron
Findings
Stuffing—The review has found that 58,056 votes were introduced illegally or stuffed. Specifically, the recount found that, in 3,873 polling places (or 33%), there was an average of 5 votes too many per site.
Robbing—The review has also found that 61,688 votes were illegitimately subtracted or robbed. Specifically, the recount found that, in 3,659 polling places (or 31%), there was an average of 5.2 votes missing per site.
Fraud—Thus, the total number of polling places where votes were illegally added or subtracted sums to 7,532 (or 65%), and the total number of altered votes is 119,744.
Results
These findings undermine the election. The recount confirms and quantifies problems that it cannot repair. The Tribunal cannot count robbed votes. It also cannot identify which ballots were stuffed and which were legitimately cast by citizens. All stuffed ballots were printed by the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE).
Thus, if the Tribunal is to act impartially to cleanse the election, it must annul results from polling sites that have grave and irreparable irregularities. These irregularities put in question the fairness and impartiality of the process as well as erase any certainty about the reported tallies for candidates.
Article number 75 of Mexico's election law—la Ley General del Sistema de Medios de Impugnación en Materia Electoral—states that polling places will be nullified when “(k) there exists grave irregularities, plainly witnessed and not repairable, during the election or in the counting and tallying of votes, that are evident, put in doubt the certainty of the vote, and are determinative for the results of the vote.”[6]
Second result
The review has also found injurious falsification during the counting of ballot boxes. Numbers were reported for thousands of ballot boxes that bear no relationship to the will of the electorate. Although there might have been errors in the count, it is not these problems that modify the results.
The recount found variations in the data of 81% of the ballot-box counts. The votes obtained by López Obrador show practically no variation. Hence he would only lose 43 votes out of all the recounted boxes. In contrast, Felipe Calderón receives on paper 13,335 votes that never existed in 4,969 polling places (43% of the sites reviewed). On average, he was given 1.14 extra and illegitimate votes per site. The PAN has tried to dismiss these additions as “comprehensible human error,” but these errors only went one way. Felipe Calderón benefitted over López Obrador by more than 31 thousand per cent.[7] This asymmetry is proof of massive and deliberate falsification.
Third result
The review has found that sealed electoral packages have been opened and tampered with after the district tallies. In practically all of the districts reviewed, the Tribunal found tens of thousands of packages without seals. It also found hundreds of thousands of envelopes containing the electoral vote with broken seals or without witness signatures. In addition, it also found electoral packages that were disappeared. These results show that there was illegal manipulation of the packages, the envelopes, and the electoral ballots before, during, and after the district tally.
Fourth result
The Electoral Tribunal had to order a new and partial tally because the General Counsel of the IFE and the District Counsels were remiss in the accomplishment of their legal obligations and abused their authority. Specifically, these functionaries of the IFE violated the Constitution of the Republic as well as with the Federal Code of Electoral Procedures. They broke or failed to apply these laws with premeditation, treachery, and to gain advantage for the party in power. Their goal was to cover the evident defrauding and manipulation of the electoral process.

presidential election
The Electoral Tribunal has conducted a limited recount that is insufficient for guaranteeing the results of the presidential election. Hence it has failed to fulfill the legal requirement of Article 41 of the Mexican Constitution. Nevertheless, its recount provides a well-documented sample population that can be used to extrapolate nationally. These extrapolations show the magnitude of the fraud.
At a national level, Felipe Calderón gained 651,538 fraudulent votes at polling places. He also had another 149,653 votes added through falsified box tallies. In contrast, López Obrador had 692,299 votes eliminated illegally. If these irregularities are corrected, Andrés Manuel López Obrador wins the July 2nd election by nearly 1.5 million votes.
These results show that the popular will, as expressed in ballot boxes, has so far been usurped. The demand for full recount is sensible, legal, possible, and necessary. This demand has been expressed by the majority of the people of México. They demand that the presidential election be cleaned up vote by vote and poll by poll.
This popular demand has now received new legal support from the Electoral Tribunal recount. We hope that the Electoral Tribunal is up to the next challenge. It must resolve the problem of fraud in accordance with our Constitution and laws. The people of México deserve to know the truth and deserve a legitimately elected president.

May the citizen's will be respected!
May the election be cleansed!
Vote by vote and poll by poll!
We will not accept the imposition of a spurious president!

Long live passive civil resistance!
Coalition for the Good of All
México City, D. F. 15th of August, 2006.

[1] See http://em.fis.unam.mx/~mochan/elecciones/
[2] See http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/11/opinion/11lopezobrador.html as well as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdP86OWRPoQ or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WPSaKoeuFM
[3] The mobilization of Sunday 7/30 had crowd estimates ranging from a high of 3 million to a low of 180 thousand by the Federal Police. Although the AP press reported 2 million, the Mexico City police estimated 2.4 million. Images in the We Are Many PowerPoint support the higher estimates.
[4] For a map of the central city, see http://www.allaboutmexicocity.com/histcentermap.htm or http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formtype=address&addtohistory=&address=&city=Mexico%20City&state=Mexico&zipcode=&country=MX&location=z3iCh0EKn0UAmU%2fiQEdsy1AVr9XmjydWWB%2bxu8MxtMpbF%2bSxY1khJqJYJJR5x66cPl0Jkhdd%2bgEL91E5b5xXDzjhyLMg1QziNeoNR7Gddmg%3d&ambiguity=1
[5] See videos at http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/graficos/a/videos_amlo/videos-sanlazaro.htm#
[6] Las causales de nulidad de casillas: “k) Existir irregularidades graves, plenamente acreditadas y no reparables durante la jornada electoral o en las actas de escrutinio y cómputo que, en forma evidente, pongan en duda la certeza de la votación y sean determinantes para el resultado de la misma.”
[7] This percentage does not include votes withdrawn by the Tribunal.

'People power' is a global brand owned by AmericaThe US and the western media back protests over controversialelections when it suits them, but are si

2006-08-19T08:21:00.000-07:00

(Mark Almond is a history lecturer at Oriel College, Oxford)

Tuesday August 15, 2006The Guardian A couple of years ago television, radio and print media in the westjust couldn't get enough of "people power". In quick succession, fromGeorgia's rose revolution in November 2003, via Ukraine's orange revolution a year later, to the tulip revolution in Kyrgyzstan and thecedar revolution in Lebanon, 24-hour news channels kept us up to datewith democracy on a roll.Triggered by allegations of election fraud, the dominoes toppled. The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, was happy with the trend:"They're doing it in many different corners of the world, places asvaried as Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan and, on the other hand, Lebanon ...And so this is a hopeful time."But when a million Mexicans try to jump on the people-power bandwagon,crying foul about the July 2 presidential elections, when protestersstage a vigil in the centre of the capital that continues to this day, they meet a deafening silence in the global media. Despite Mexico'slong tradition of electoral fraud and polls suggesting that AndrésManuel López Obrador - a critic of the North American Free TradeAgreement (Nafta) - was ahead, the media accepted the wafer-thin majority gained by the ruling party nominee, Harvard graduate FelipeCalderón.Although Mexico's election authorities rejected López Obrador's demandfor all 42m ballots to be recounted, the partial recount of 9% indicated numerous irregularities. But no echo of indignation haswafted to the streets of Mexico City from western capitals.Maybe Israel's intervention in Lebanon grabbed all the attention andrequired every hack and videophone. Back in 2004 CNN and the BBC were perfectly able to cover the battle for Falluja and the orangerevolution in the same bulletins. Today, however, even a news junkielike me cannot remember a mainstream BBC bulletin live from among themassive crowds in Mexico City. Faced by CNN's indifference to the growing crisis in Mexico, only a retread of an old saying will do:"Pity poor Mexico, so far from Israel, so close to the United States."Castro's failing health gets more airtime than the constitutional crisis gripping America's southern neighbour, which is one of itsmajor oil suppliers. Apparently, crowds of protesters squatting inMexico City for weeks protesting against alleged vote-rigging don'tmake a good news story. Occasionally commentators who celebrated Ukrainians blocking the main thoroughfares of Kiev condescend to jeerat Mexico's sore losers and complain that businessmen are missingdeadlines because dead-enders with nothing better to do are holding upthe traffic. Ukraine's Viktor Yushchenko was decisive when he declared himself president, but isn't López Obrador a demagogue for doing thesame?The colour-coded revolutionaries of the former Soviet Union had apro-western agenda - such as bringing Georgia and Ukraine into Nato and the EU - but in Latin America radicals question the wisdom ofmembership of US-led bodies such as Nafta and the WTO. The crude truthis that Washington cannot afford to let Mexico's vast oil reservesfall into hands of a president even half as radical as Venezuela's Hugo Chávez.But didn't the western observers certify the Mexican polls as "fair",while they condemned the Ukrainian elections? True, but electionobservers are not objective scientists. The EU relies on politicians, not automatons, to evaluate polls. Take the head of its observermission, the MEP José Ignacio Salafranca: as a Spanish speaker inMexico, Salafranca had a huge advantage over many of the MEPs inUkraine who draped themselves in orange even while en mission - but he is hardly neutral. His rightwing Popular party is an ally ofCalderón's Pan party, which is in power in Mexico. Calderón wasimmediately congratulated by Salafranca's colleague AntonioLópez-Istúriz on the "great news". The days of leftwing fraternalism may be over, but the globalist righthas its own network, linking the Spanish conservatives, AmericanRepublicans and Calderón's Pan party - and they provided the keyobserver. To paraphrase Stalin: "It doesn't matter who votes, it matters who observes the vote."Salafranca has a track record as an election observer. In Lebanon'sgeneral elections in 2005 he had no problem with the pro-westernfaction sweeping the board around Beirut with fewer than a quarter of voters taking part and nine of its seats gained without even a tokenalternative candidate. "It is a feast of democracy," he declared. Hismood changed when the democratic banquet moved to areas dominated by Hizbullah or the Christian maverick General Aoun. Suddenly,"vote-buying" and the need for "fundamental reform" popped up in theEU observation reports.Unanimity on the scale seen across Lebanon suggests that the cedar revolution - despite the hype - did nothing to promote real democraticpluralism. Hizbullah's hold on the south is the most controversialaspect of the sectarian segmentation of Lebanese society, buteverywhere local bosses dominate their fiefdoms as before. Similarly, more scepticism about Ukraine's revolution would have left peoplebetter informed than the orange boosterism that passed for commentary18 months ago.But Mexico is different because it is so under-reported. The cruel reality is that "people power" has become a global brand. But like somany global brands it is owned by Americans. Mexicans and any other"populists" who try to copy it should beware that they're infringing a copyright. No matter how many protesters swarm through Mexico City orhow long they protest, it is George Bush and co who decide whichpeople truly represent The People. People power turns out to be aboutpolitics, not arithmetic. · Mark Almond is a history lecturer at Oriel College, Oxfordmpalmond@aol.com http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1844573,00.html __._,_.___

Election Fraud in Mexico: NY Times balks again

2006-08-18T10:38:00.000-07:00

OpEdNews.com

Original Article at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_kenneth__060815_election_fraud_in_me.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
August 15, 2006

Election Fraud in Mexico: NY Times balks again

By Kenneth Anderson

Election rigging has been a stolid feature of so-called democracies for a long time. But it has been rather recently that recognition and acknowledgement of the practice has become scant, unless, of course, the people doing the rigging are not part of the acceptable establishment. We saw Democrats laughed at in 2000 for claiming such a thing, so in 2004, they didn't; too afraid to be called names by the GOP machine. Meanwhile Republicans -- who actually conducted the worst of the rigging -- audaciously, though spottily, projected accusations of election fraud onto the hapless Dems. If I lived on the Moon and had watched this from afar, I would have been laughing myself. But there was nothing funny about either the sad sight of the sorry Democrats being slapped senseless or the bellicose and wholly contemptible players of the GOP in the charade that we still insist on calling an "election."

Despite the corporate media's inability to recognise election fraud here, it was easily spotted elsewhere when being conducted by unseemly regimes friendly toward Russia. We saw the Bush administration and the US media's haughty disregard of the Ukraine elections in 2004; exit polls were amiss, clearly there was a problem. US diplomats, led by Colin Powell, bewailed the vile practice of election fraud when it was the Russian-friendly incumbent Prime Minister Yanukovich who had been doing the rigging.

Reports then indicated that thugs loyal to Yanukovich had beaten Ukraine voters at the polls and US diplomatic remonstration was severe, but in Egypt -- an ally in the War on Terra -- where much worse took place as state police actually shot and killed voters and barracaded polling stations, Condoleezza Rice meekly admonished these shameful activities. But since those actions were directed at the party of the Muslim Brotherhood, well, no declarations about election fraud ensued. Of course, the Ukraine election result was recalled, the Egyptian one stood.

But our media in this country cannot and will not attempt the slightest investigation into wrongdoings in US elections. And there is a vast body of evidence pointing to election fraud in each of the elections in 2000, 2002, and 2004. But from the US media, barely a word. When it is reported, disclaimers that such activities could not possibly have affected the outcome are invariably attached. Local reporting in Ohio in 2004 was excellent, with Fitrakis and Wasserman leading the charge, but on the national level, the vast array of manipulations was buried. The reasons, no doubt, are as varied as they are weak-minded or, possibly, just plain dangerous. Ultimately, the establishment cannot allow or cannot admit that election fraud is a serious problem in American. This is, after all, the vanguard of democracy, or at least, that is what we like to tell ourselves, despite the fact that half or more of the population rarely bothers to vote. Elections in America are mythical and pure, never mind what actually happens. In reality, clean elections in the United States are purely mythical. The media, either consciously or not, sees to it that this myth must endure. Local reports of yet more egregious electoral behaviour will certainly be on order this November, only to be strenuously ignored and downplayed again; ahh, those loopy moonbats.

Today, the New York Times offers yet another excellent example of just how the media treats election fraud when those claiming it are not of the proper pursuasion.

Mexican Leftist Remains Defiant
declaimed the Times. The implication is redolent with derision. Leftists are surely bad enough, but Mexican Leftists? Can there be a worse kind? And naturally such loons are "defiant"; they're always complaining about something.

And that was just the headline. Indeed, sifting through the ponderous he said/she said article couldn't have been a bigger waste of time, unless one is curious as to how the Times can publish an lengthy article on the Mexican election dispute and not tell the reader one single fact surrounding the nature of the dispute until the second to last paragraph, when we suddenly learn a rather disturbing thing:
in about 3,000 polling places examined during the partial recount there were nearly 46,000 more ballots cast for president than had been delivered to poll workers before the election. In another 4,300 polling places ... 80,000 ballots delivered to the polls were unaccounted for or missing.
But that is it as far as the Times is concerned. Not a word about Choicepoint or the FBI shenanigans in Mexico. Nothing about the millions of ballots found in dumpsters. Zero about Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) withholding 3.3 million ballots on election night and, under public pressure, releasing 2.5 million of them, which in turn reduced Calderón's initial margin from 377,000 to 257,000. Certainly nothing about the putative "winner" Calderón's brother-in-law and that his company, Hildebrando, was a partner in the "design" of the election tabulation software. Vote shaving? nada. Statistical improbabilities? nope.

But what did the Times do when the completed partial recount demonstrate the need for a full recount and that this would assuredly result in a win for Obrador? Bury the numbers. Fortunately, there are a few outlets that won't do that:

In 3,074 precincts (29 percent of those recounted), 45,890 illegal votes, above the number of voters who cast ballots in each polling place, were found stuffed inside the ballot boxes (an average of 15 for each of these precincts, primarily in strongholds of the National Action Party, known as the PAN, of President Vicente Fox and his candidate, Felipe Calderón).
In 4,368 precincts (41 percent of those recounted), 80,392 ballots of citizens who did vote are missing (an average of 18 votes in each of these precincts).
Together, these 7,442 precincts contain about 70 percent of the ballots recounted. The total amount of ballots either stolen or forged adds up to 126,282 votes altered.
If the recount results of these 10,679 precincts (8.2 percent of the nation's 130,000 polling places) are projected nationwide, it would mean that more than 1.5 million votes were either stolen or stuffed in an election that the first official count claimed was won by Calderon by only 243,000 votes.
The evidence of election fraud is concrete, the numbers unassailable, and now government forces have decided that enough is enough and have begun to shoot protesters -- teachers -- in the street (something you also won't read about in the Times). Indeed, Mexico is very much looking like the Ukraine of 2004, but not to the American media this time. This time the fraud was perpetrated by the establishment's own, one of the chosen ones. The Bush administration has blessed the number of the count when clearly there are serious problems with those numbers, probably worse than was seen in Ukraine. But Calderón would be a good son to the corporate interests that wanted him President. He wasn't going to upset things, renegotiate NAFTA as Obrador had promised. And the New York Times, once again, appears more than happy to scoff at the facts and tow the party line, the party line that says only "they" rig elections.

Fortunately, Mexicans appear to be far more invested in their own democracy that Americans in theirs. They also appear to be far better informed about their own elections, too. Perhaps they still have a media that hasn't bailed on the ideal democracy. They are fighting the obvious fraud but this time, it isn't the Ukraine. Look for no help from the Bush administration. Calderón is a "friendly" and not some crazed "leftist" upsetting the "business climate" by trying to help the poor.

Authors Bio: An astronomer who has worked on a number of NASA projects, Ken lives in Baltimore, where he devotes his scientific training to observations and inferences about current affairs, politics and the media. He authors Anything They Say and The Bonehead Compendium.

Back to Article

BMD´s: Babies of Mass Destruction?

2006-08-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

OpEdNews.com

Original Article at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_edgar_po_060816_bmd_b4s_3a_babies_of_mas.htm

August 16, 2006

BMD´s: Babies of Mass Destruction?

By Edgar Pope

You will have to excuse my skepticism, and that of the many who have already pointed out the convenient timing of this, the latest "terror" threat. Enjoying a new low in popularity, George Bush, with Air Force One as a backdrop, seems just pleased as punch to "remind" us that we are in constant danger, and will be for a "long time". We should understand by this, of course, that he is our only hope for preserving a lifestyle that everyone else in the world wishes they had but can't because they aren't American (never questioning of course whether people elsewhere are really all that interested in hootenannies and weekends spent at shooting ranges or in paramilitary training).

One wonders, though, How will they ever top the moral indignation they are currently attempting to engender through the rhetoric of "Muslim fascism" and images of mothers willing to blow up their own babies? Has the Right arrived at some sort of endgame?

I, for one, get the sense that people are tiring of the "Christian fascist" talking heads. Even people that I know used to sit for hours transfixed by the whiney drone of Bill O´Reilly don't seem to take it all so seriously anymore. I try to refrain from saying, "I told you so," although of course they see it in my face when they, tentatively, complain about him, or (who says there is no God?) change channels mid sentence.

By contrast to the United States, where the Right has had its day and seems to be winding down, conservatism is only just now beginning to show its real face in Mexico. Politics there have been, until recently, relatively tranquil. The business-as-usual of buying and selling influence and elections has gone on for years, of course, but conducted with a kind of old-fashioned gentlemen's understanding-you let me rob the people here and I won't say anything when you rob them there.

But recently, partisan extremism has arrived in Mexico, too, undoubtedly under the influence of The American Experience up north, and, along with it, the inflammatory rhetoric and blatant hypocrisy that characterize today's political theater. I say theater, of course, because surely only the purest of heart, those most in denial, or the just plain stupid can any longer believe or pretend that such a thing as democracy, and its necessary corollary, public protest, exist anywhere, except perhaps in Europe.

In Mexico, the ruling party, known by its initials, PAN, just robbed the presidential election. Nothing new, right? Well, no, but still interesting. Because in the previous presidential election (2000) the ruling party actually lost. Indeed, it was the PAN itself, who, under Vicente Fox, fought assiduously for years against the previous ruling party, the PRI, first in state elections and then nationally. Promising change for the Mexican people, the PAN finally toppled the PRI. And Fox's victory was a change in that sense. It showed that the unthinkable-beating a ruling party in an election-was indeed possible in Mexico. But now that the PAN is the ruling party, its sense of doubt concerning Mexican elections has utterly vanished. An amnesia it has been called. The urgency for change has evaporated. Somehow feelings of outrage and indignation, and the great need for vigilance and suspicion over against the ruling party, has been replaced in PAN rhetoric by, almost incredulously, the need to respect institutions! In six years, we are supposed to believe, Mexico has been transformed into a model of democracy. The truth is, not surprisingly, that it has not. Instead, democracy has suffered the same fate there that it has been dealt here in the United States: it has morphed into a gleaming Right Wing fetish, a mere simulation of itself that is used to justify falsified elections, and the invasion of foreign sovereign states like Iraq (and Cuba and Iran?). And, as one reads over and over again on t-shirts, banners, and signs at López Obrador rallies, Fox himself, and the PAN, all the while accusing López Obrador of being a danger to Mexico, have themselves become traitors to Mexican democracy.

In spite of the PAN's slogan, "The Party of Change", things in Mexico have not changed in Fox's six years in office. Ordinary people are still ignored or worse, while Mexico's ruling elite and transnational companies prosper. Meanwhile, many Mexicans, still without the jobs that were sure to come to Mexico under the modern, "pro-business" regime introduced by Fox, are still forced to seek work in the United States. And now, Mexico's poor increasingly risk their lives by facing America's rising vigilante population at the border. To top it off, the PRI, previously PAN's great enemy (due, according to the PAN itself, to any number of unspeakable crimes committed against Mexico), is now its ally. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, they say. Indeed, the PRI even sold PAN votes to insure that the PAN candidate "won" the 2006 elections. A tape-recorded phone message catching one such transaction has been played repeatedly in Mexico since the election. And now, in Chiapas, the PAN has formed a coalition with the PRI, and the PAN candidate has withdrawn from an upcoming gubernatorial election there in order to help the PRI candidate win! All to stop the threat of a government, like that proposed by López Obrador, that might actually side with the people instead of corporate interests. The PRI, meanwhile, in a typically hypocritical and cynical effort to buy votes (so much for the sanctity of democracy), is handing out trinkets to the elderly-the same elderly, who according to the logic of the Right, should not be depending on the government to survive (shame on the elderly in Chiapas for not yet investing their retirement funds in the stock market).

And along came Andrés Manuel López Obrador, former mayor of Mexico City and the friend of ordinary people. Well, already we can see his great crime. Friend of ordinary people?! Nothing like a little social justice to ruin a party. "For the good of all, but first the Poor"? Where does someone like that get off running for the presidency of a country? Well, you can just see the Right Wing foaming at the mouth. The rhetoric bursts forth (how could it be contained?): "Communist". "A danger to Mexico". Those wishing to be a little less transparent, like the Washington Post, navigate the semantic field more subtly: they call López Obrador "an ardent populist with a messianic touch", "charismatic". But the intent is clear: to instill a fear of López Obrador. And their cynicism is unbounded when they callously transform the movement of millions of Mexicans hoping for a responsive government into "the ambitions of one man"! Ah, the pen IS mightier than the sword. Imagine erasing so many people in one sentence.

Events, of course, and in spite of anyone's illusions of agency, necessarily unfold according to their own logic. Once challenged, for instance, the violence intrinsic to the Right's philosophy of throwing everyone to the slings and arrows of economic forces inevitably erupts. The gleaming surfaces of the buildings along the Paseo de la Reforma cannot contain it. Vicente Fox's thugs (aka the Mexican Military, the Special Preventive Police, and various other groups whose only function is to protect the government from the people), have already beaten and wounded elected representatives of the Mexican Congress when they attempted to establish protests in front of the legislative buildings. And now, tanks and water canons have been deployed to insure that Fox's sixth and final State of the Union address is not marred by dissent. In that address, undoubtedly, he will pretend that there is no crisis in Mexico and that the millions of Mexicans who see him as a traitor do not exist.

Fox and friends, ironically, have been complaining that López Obrador's popular demonstrations in Mexico City have been bad for the tourist industry. They complain that streets have been blocked. Does Fox not ask himself what sort of image is portrayed by the deployment of tanks in the capital? And when Fox blocks street, apparently, it is to help traffic? Or do Fox and friends really believe that tourists will feel safer knowing that Mexico City has been militarized? The frightening thing is, the PAN might actually believe that.

We should all be enormously grateful to Mexico these days: to Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to his millions of supporters, to the Asamblea Popular del Pueblo de Oaxaca. These brave souls are doing what many of us would like to do, but do not have sufficient conviction to do. They are fighting the machine. More importantly, they are forcing its viciousness to the surface for all to look at. And they are pushing the Right further to the edge, and, inevitably, right over the edge. The day is coming when we can finally say "Adios" to the likes of Bush, Fox, and Blair and to the hate industries that support them.

Then perhaps we will all have a few years in which to live in relative peace until the next bunch of fear peddlers comes along.

Authors Bio: Edgar Pope is an artist, musician, writer who is old enough to remember when the world really was, or at least seemed, a kinder and gentler place.

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Mexico’s President Defends Vote Tally Electing His Ally

2006-08-15T23:49:00.000-07:00

August 15, 2006
Mexico’s President Defends Vote Tally Electing His Ally
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. and GINGER THOMPSON
MEXICO CITY, Aug. 14 — With the country locked in a battle over the results of last month’s elections, President Vicente Fox for the first time defended the vote that narrowly favored his party’s candidate as clean and fair, rejecting allegations of widespread irregularities.

“The process has been transparent in the eyes of the world,” the president said Sunday evening in an interview at his residence inside Los Pinos, the presidential compound. “It was watched by the media. There were observers. The entire world was watching the electoral process. There is nothing hidden.”

On Monday, Felipe Calderón, the candidate of Mr. Fox’s conservative National Action Party, once again declared victory, while supporters of the leftist candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, scuffled with police officers outside Mexico’s legislature. Mr. López Obrador has vowed to carry on his campaign of civil disobedience to press for a full recount of the July 2 ballot.

Mr. Fox predicted in the interview that Mexico’s electoral institutions, which he described as “the most modern, well-structured, efficient electoral systems in the world,” would bring the crisis to a peaceful end.

“This is a country of institutions,” he said. “I am sure that this test, this real test of the democratic system, will be passed and resolved according to the law and democratic principles.”

A partial recount ordered by a special electoral tribunal has yet to be made public, but on Monday, Mr. Calderón, who has stayed out of the limelight in recent weeks, expressed confidence that the results would confirm his victory. He called the allegations by Mr. López Obrador of missing ballots and stuffed ballot boxes “a big lie.” He said the election had been free of serious problems.

“The only thing we have here is a candidate that lost the election and won’t recognize his defeat,” Mr. Calderón said, surrounded by bodyguards at an opulent house he has rented as his transition headquarters.

Mr. López Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who champions the cause of the poor, has conducted protests since the election, demanding a recount of all 41 million ballots. Thousands of his supporters have shut down the capital’s central avenue, Paseo de la Reforma, for miles and occupied its historic square, the Plaza de la Constitución.

On Monday, about 20 lawmakers from Mr. López Obrador’s party clashed with federal police officers when they tried to block an entrance to the building that houses Mexico’s lower house of deputies, the Palacio Legislativo de San Lázaro.

Several lawmakers were bruised and cut as the police used batons, tear gas and riot shields to move them, said one of the lawmakers, Elías Miguel Moreno Brizuela. A spokesman for the police declined to comment on the incident.

But the clash may be a harbinger of things to come. Mr. López Obrador says he will not abide by the decision of the special electoral tribunal charged with ratifying the results if it declares Mr. Calderón, a conservative backed by business leaders, the winner. He has threatened to keep up protests for years, if necessary, saying his movement is to “defend democracy” and “purify public life.”

An official tally last month indicated that Mr. Calderon won the election by just 243,000 votes. Mr. López Obrador, who leads the Party of the Democratic Revolution, charged that the contests were rigged against him. In response to his legal challenge, the electoral tribunal ordered a partial recount of ballots in some 12,000 polling places.

Although the seven-member court has yet to release results of that recount, Mr. Calderón and his aides say their figures show it will not change the outcome.

Mr. López Obrador’s lawyers are seeking to annul the results in about 7,000 polling places where, they argue, there were either ballots missing or more ballots cast than had been delivered to poll workers.

Mr. López Obrador has announced plans to disrupt Mr. Fox’s annual state of the union message to Congress on Sept. 1 and to try to stop the court from giving Mr. Calderón the official document making him president on Sept. 6.

He has also threatened to disrupt the traditional Independence Day celebration on Sept. 15 and has said he will convene a “national democratic convention” the next day, which is when the Mexican armed forces hold their annual parade. The prospect of protesters supporting a recount facing off with soldiers has raised fears of violence.

On Sunday, Mr. Fox refused to give an opinion about the demonstrations led by Mr. López Obrador, which have snarled traffic across Mexico City for two weeks. But he made it clear he believed that disputes over the presidency should be fought in the courts, not the streets.

The president said he was required by law to stay out of the fray until Sept. 6, when the Federal Electoral Tribunal must rule on all complaints and declare the next president. After that, Mr. Fox said, he would take the steps necessary to uphold the tribunal’s decision and make sure the new president is able to take office.

When asked whether he expected trouble, Mr. Fox said, “I cannot anticipate events. But when the events occur, I will assume my responsibility.”

Asked about Mr. López Obrador’s threats, Mr. Fox said Independence Day “is a Mexican celebration, not a government celebration.”

“He must assume his responsibility,” Mr. Fox said. “If he is going to deny Mexicans the use of Reforma, if he is going to deny them independence celebrations and the military parade, then history and the Mexican people will be the judge.”

The Recount: Reading Between the Lines

2006-08-12T03:34:00.000-07:00

LINK: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/mexicovotes/2006/08/the_recount_reading_between_th_1.html

Sometimes in Mexico you need to read several versions of the same story to make an educated guess as to what exactly is going on. Such is the case with the recount taking place in more than 11,000 polling places across the country.
Judging from the front-page coverage in the tabloid La Jornada, the errors in the tabulations of the July 2 presidential vote seem endless.
But coverage by El Universal is more subdued, referring to minor tally errors being discovered in the first day of the recount:
"Officials reviewing ballots at a district office in the northern city of Monterrey took more than an hour to count the first of 100 ballot boxes, said Raúl González, a PRD representative helping monitor the tally. 'It's going very slowly," said González. He predicted the count would take four days. At a district office in Guadalupe, Nuevo León, outside of Monterrey, party officials disagreed on what recount results showed.
"'There are normal errors both for them and for us,' Francisco Javier Bustillos, a National Action Party representative, said in an interview at the district office."
Campaign Cónexion suggests reading the coverage and then, to borrow from Bill Clinton, triangulate. Somewhere in the middle of all that is the reality of the situation.
Here's what we know:
* Conservative Felipe Calderón, selling himself as the logical extension of President Vicente Fox, won the initial count in the July 2 election by about 240,000 votes.
* His leftist rival, former Mexico City mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, filed a 900-page document alleging massive fraud.
* Mexico's election tribunal ordered a recount of about 9 percent of the total votes cast -- or 4 million votes. The counting (is re-counting a word?) began Wednesday, under the watchful eyes of 180 magistrates, party representatives and reporters who were permitted into some polling places.
It can be awfully slow going, as James C. McKinley Jr. reports from Zapopan.
"At the Sixth Election District in Jalisco, the magnitude of even a partial re-tallying of votes was evident. After five hours of work, Magistrate José Manuel Mojica, a soft-spoken avuncular man with gray hair and mustache, had managed to get through only 3 of the 247 packets to be opened," McKinley reported in the New York Times. "The judge sat at a green covered table with two lawyers, one representing Mr. López Obrador and one Mr. Calderón, while the head of the election district and one of the local board members counted ballots by hand. A secretary took notes.
"Several problems arose, causing the judge to rub his forehead. In one polling place, 100 fewer ballots were accounted for than were delivered to the poll workers. 'I'm missing a lot of ballots,' the judge told the lawyers."
The tribunal has insisted that the recount be finished by Sunday evening. Although several newspapers are reporting results of the recount each day, the seven judges said no results will be official until they have completed trials weighing the fraud complaints for each district.
Yes, this means Mexico's never-ending presidential election may ruin yet another weekend.
Spinning the Recount
Though no great friend of the press, López Obrador has turned to the venerable Gray Lady to argue his case in the international court of public opinion. In an op-ed published Friday, he writes:
"The largest demonstrations in our history are daily proof that millions of Mexicans want a full accounting of last month's presidential election. ... Unfortunately, the electoral tribunal responsible for ratifying the election results thwarted the wishes of many Mexicans and refused to approve a nationwide recount. Instead, their narrow ruling last Saturday allows for ballot boxes in only about 9 percent of polling places to be opened and reviewed.
"This is simply insufficient for a national election where the margin was less than one percentage point - and where the tribunal itself acknowledged evidence of arithmetic mistakes and fraud, noting that there were errors at nearly 12,000 polling stations in 26 states."
The former mayor of Mexico City used his Times piece to invoke activist leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi to reiterate his call for a full recount: "After all, our aim is to strengthen, not damage, Mexico's institutions, to force them to adopt greater transparency. Mexico's credibility in the world will only increase if we clarify the results of this election."
For a fuller -- albeit decidedly opinionated -- assessment of López Obrador, turn to the writings of George Grayson, a professor at the College of William and Mary. In Friday's Wall Street Journal, Grayson, author of "Mesias Mexicano," recounts López Obrador's childhood in the state of Tabasco, his five years running an institute focused on indigenous peoples and his ingenious "exodus" marches in the early 1990s:
"These Exodus marches catapulted the PRD visionary onto the national stage and impelled his election as national PRD president in 1996. Four years later, he captured the Mexico City mayorship and immediately began to refer to the capital as 'the City of Hope.' There he became the consummate populist caudillo.
"Mr. López Obrador is losing ground even in his own party as a growing number of PRD officials fear that his methods reinforce the image of the left as irresponsible radicals. Still, he truly believes that he is the savior of the downtrodden and he will continue his antics, which he insists are justified because of Mexico's widespread misery. Mr. Calderón's best bet to neutralize the messianic politician will be a policy agenda to spur robust growth and eat away at the poverty that afflicts nearly half of the country's 107.5 million people."
Everyone Has Something to Say
Political rhetoric in the post-election era has not been limited to the candidates. A new analysis by Dan Lund, president of the Mexico-based Lund Americas research company, finds that private corporations are among the most aggressive--and least regulated--political advertisers:
"While the (electoral commission), the PAN, and the Federal Government spots tend to promote their sponsors and indirectly attack the opposition, the private sector spots are 'completely non-party and profoundly political,' in the words of the Society en Movement web site. Eight minute ads on prime time explain how the July 2nd election was 'practically' immune from fraud by virtue of citizen participation, and that in fact the vote-by-vote, casilla-by-casilla count has already been completed.
"Speaking in the name and with the 'voices' of the casilla citizen participants and the people themselves, the ad shamelessly appropriates the inked thumb logo character of the IFE to explain the current situation."
The political parties too are purchasing more advertising time and putting out their best spinmeisters. From Calderón's National Action Party, or PAN, comes the insightful observation that the errors discovered so far are "ordinary and reasonable."
López Obrador's Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD, says that the discovery of even the smallest of problems is evidence of the need for the full recount he has demanded for more than a month.
"López Obrador needs to recover an average of 20 missing votes in each precinct to change the result - an outcome many election experts see as unlikely," according to the Houston Chronicle. "We have the obligation to defend democracy and everything that this implies," López Obrador wrote in an open letter distributed Wednesday.
Experts in Mexico appear divided over how the tribunal will react if significant irregularities are discovered in the partial recount.
"In its decision Saturday, the tribunal appeared to close the door on a full recount, with justices saying the law allowed the recounting of ballots only at polling stations that appeared to have made arithmetic errors or shown other irregularities," reports Sam Enriquez in the Los Angeles Times.
In a live chat with Campaign Cónexion Wednesday, legal scholar John Ackerman agreed that it appears the tribunal is leaning against a full recount. But he sees real danger in not doing so: "This is highly problematic because if serious irregularities are discovered in the partial recount there will be increased social demands for a full recount. But, in this case, pretty much the only option the justices have left for themselves is to "annul" or simply not declare the election valid and call for new elections."
Not surprisingly, the PRD is continuing to press for a full recount: "López Obrador himself rejected the whole idea of the partial recount, and repeated his vow that he will never allow the 'imposition' of a fraudulently elected president. Speaking to supporters Wednesday night in Mexico City's Zócalo, the PRD candidate also blasted most of the major media for waging a 'disinformation campaign' and 'accepting the role of pimps for the political right.'"
Supporters of Andres Manuel López Obrador protest outside Mexico's Treasury Secretary building in Mexico City earlier today. The man's sign reads, "Vote for Vote and Poll for Poll". (Reuters)
With each day, AMLO and his followers become more creative, or sinister, depending on your point of view. On Wednesday, demonstrators blocked entrances to three of the five largest banks here.
"The Association of Mexican Banks, in an e-mailed statement, urged authorities to keep the demonstrations within the limits of the law and prevent protests from affecting the rights of others," according to a wire service roundup in the Miami Herald's Mexico City edition. "Roy Caple, a spokesman for HSBC in Mexico City, said in a telephone interview the bank was operating normally.
"On Tuesday López Obrador supporters took over tollbooths on four federal highways, allowing drivers to pass through free of charge. Since July 30 protesters have blocked 12 kilometers of Mexico City's main avenue, filling the eight-lane boulevard with tents. Hotels and businesses in the area have lost about 1.5 billion pesos (US$138 million) because of the protests, the local chamber of commerce said Wednesday."
Much of the chattering class -- as well as many workers -- are fed up with the civil disobedience. But columnist Jesus Ortega Martinez argues that even though this is the largest recount ordered by the tribunal in its history, it is still insufficient to quell uncertainties surrounding the election.
Getting to Know the Neighbors
Senior Calderón adviser Arturo Sarakhan spoke at the National Press Club in Washington earlier this week and attempted to debunk what he described as many "myths" about his man, Mexico's electoral system and the legality of a total recount. Sarakhan reminded the audience that Calderón, who embraces the nickname "disobedient son," was not Fox's choice. But he won the PAN nomination. Second, Sarakhan noted, Calderón trailed López Obrador in most polls for most of the campaign, yet appears to have won.
"It seems easy to forget that, since 1994, Mexico, Mexican society, Mexican political parties of all persuasions, including Mr. López Obrador's PRD, put into motion what is probably one of the most efficient, successful, widely recognized electoral systems and laws and regulations anywhere in the world today."
-- Ceci Connolly

Private Sector: orphaned

2006-08-12T03:16:00.000-07:00

Research in Global Demographics
Tehuantepec 55 Bis Col. Roma Sur
Mexico 06760 D.F.
Tel. +52 (55) 5584 3020; 5584 2470
e-mail: mund@mundamericas.com
Website: www.mundamericas.com
Opinion Report
Number 5a
Series 6
August 10, 2006

Direct Link:

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/documents/Lund_Opinion_Report_S6.pdf

Private Sector: orphaned

The IP in Mexico:orphaned from the PRI,
relatively autonomous from the PAN,
defining its own political strategy

With even greater media diffusion than the news of civil disobedience calling for a vote-byvote
recount, campaign-like advertising spots confirming the July 2nd electoral count are promoted
by the IFE, the PAN, the “Government of Vicente Fox,” and various private sector groups. Led byCoparmex (Confederación Patronal de la República Mexicana) and the CCE (Consejo CoordinadorEmpresarial) through their ”Society in Movement” programs, the private sector (“IP” in Mexico) is the most aggressive political advertiser in the country.
While the IFE, the PAN, and the Federal Government spots tend to promote their sponsors
and indirectly attack the opposition, the private sector spots are “completely non-party and
profoundly political”, in the words of the Society en Movement web site. Eight minute ads on prime time explain how the July 2nd election was “practically” immune from fraud by virtue of citizen participation, and that in fact the vote-by-vote, casilla-by-casilla count has already been completed.
Speaking in the name and with the “voices” of the casilla citizen participants and the people
themselves, the ad shamelessly appropriates the inked thumb logo character of the IFE to explain the current situation. In fact, the use of the IFE character represents a challenge that bespeaks the group’s lack of institutional respect and the IFE’s possible connivance. Coparmex local Presidents are being quoted as saying this campaign is to “pressure” Andrés Manuel López
Obrador so that he understands that the “elections were clean.” (The ad in streaming video can be seen on www.sociedadenmovimiento.org.mx.)
The ads from the private business sector appear not to be regulated in any way by electoral
or influence laws. They have been advertising vigorously since 2003. Before this simply becomes accepted as part of the landscape, it would be useful to look at how this supra-party activism of some business people came to be.

Orphaned from the PRI.
The IP was a powerful and comfortable part of the traditional coporativist PRI structure,
alongside the unions, the campesinos and the middle class organizations. With the fragmentation
of the PRI, particularly beginning in the North during the 1980s, a number of businessmen and
groups separated from the PRI. Some went into the PAN, but in general they did not seek to
recreate the organic PRI-like relation they had left behind.
As the transition to democracy became more formalized in the course of the 1990s, the IP
took up a role in supporting local candidates, rarely leading on specific issues but increasingly
flexible around the fundamental dynamic of alternation in power as a touchstone for the process.
(This discussion does not pretend to be a definitive summary of the IP history in politics; the
private sector in Mexico is as diverse and as textured as the country itself. The broad strokes used here have value to give a feel for the emerging role of the key centers for developing IP strategies.)

Relatively autonomous from the PAN.
The 1994 election saw the IP divided, especially since a strong PAN candidate had emerged
after the Presidential debate on television. Nonetheless, by the time of the election, most business people appeared to be in the PRI camp.
The 1997 election results showed attentive IP leaders how fragmented the PRI had become,
having lost its majority in the Chamber of Deputies. From that time forward it was easier for those who wished to think flexibly with regard to the PAN, and even to the PRD, to forge working ties.
Beginning his campaign for the Presidency in 1998, Fox actively courted the IP, particularly
the strong groupings in Monterrey, Mexico City and Guadalajara. How important these groups
were for the Fox victory is still a matter of historical research and judgment. The key point here is that Fox later disappointed them with his lack of success on a structural “reform agenda” as
President.
Many of them accepted the thesis that Fox was being held back by a divided and
uncooperative Congress. This provided the opportunity for a critical experiment by the CCE and its allies in the Congressional elections of 2003.
The general strategy was to secure a Congress more open to recover the market reform
initiatives of Salinas, especially those targeted but not yet realized by either Zedillo or Fox. Under the slogan of “that the Congress function”, the IP groups tried to help the good guys and oppose the bad guys, from their perspective. The result was not a success, as the PAN was weakened, the PRI (using the slogan of “no IVA on foods or medicines”) was strengthened and the PRD increased its representation marginally.

Defining its own strategy

After reviewing the results of the elections and the persistent popularity of López Obrador in
the DF, the twin foci of the more independent strategy became a promotion of free market values and stopping AMLO, even promoting anyone but AMLO, including a list of “acceptable” leftists.
Several versions of this strategy were utilized in ad campaigns around the video scandals of 2004 and the impeachment efforts of 2005. By March of 2005, the various threads of the strategy were brought together in the Society in Movement ensemble, which includes Lupa Ciudadana and other “independent” academic and “civic expert” groupings.

In some periods the discourse of the groups have been anti-AMLO, in others more anti-party
(directed against all parties). At times, they seem to operate with the idea that political parties are very devalued in Mexican public opinion (reasonable conclusion) and that the moment is ripe for some kind of citizen revolt (a chimera chased by the Right, Center and Left at different times all over the developed world).

The goal of Society in Movement is to limit the power of the parties and to search for other
forms by way of which the “best men and women” can come forward as “ideal candidates.” One
way this has been discussed is to lower the profile of the parties by having more “direct
democracy”, in the form of plebiscites, referendums, recalls. Such forms of direct democracy are
being discussed, proposed and even implemented by other sectors – including, ironically, many of those most sympathetic to AMLO.

Another way to lower the profile of the parties, with the implicit participation of the Consejo
de la Comunicación, is the extension of “media democracy”, that is the greatly increased use of
media to inform, measure and register not just public opinion but actual political decisions. Given their access to the commanding heights of the media, these IP sectors seem to wish to extend and formalize the opinion/decision process under media aegis and with seemingly spontaneous, or atleast non-party, organizations coming to the fore on key issues.

A counter-expression of this, perhaps only a coincidence in institutional development, is the
increased formal use by the IFE and the State level electoral institutes of contracted pre-electoral polls, exit polls, quick counts and political culture studies. In fact, the complex of federal and state electoral institutes is the biggest collective purchaser of opinion research in the country. That may or may not be seen as a good thing, when the achievements and shortcomings of these institutes are reviewed in the coming period.

In the campaign of 2006 and now in the post-electoral period, the CCE and other groups in
the IP have been active, sometimes on the side of the PAN, sometimes on the side of the PRI,
sometimes to protect Mexican democracy from “Venezuela type influences,” always in an anti-
AMLO mode. The details of their participation, including the volume and impact of the advertising, will be part of the evaluation – political, historically and juridical – of these elections.

Dan Lund
President
MUND Américas

Mexican leftist asks world to back full vote recount

2006-08-11T23:41:00.000-07:00

Friday, August 11, 2006 Posted: 1824 GMT (0224 HKT)
LINk: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/08/11/mexico.elections.ap/
Presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador addresses a rally earlier this week in Mexico City.

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- Mexico's main leftist candidate took his fight for the presidency to the world Friday, urging other countries in a New York Times editorial to support his bid for a full recount in the disputed July 2 race.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador also justified his supporters' daily demonstrations that have choked traffic and commerce in the capital for nearly two weeks, saying he can't afford mass advertising.

"We can only communicate our demand to count all the votes by peaceful protest," he said.

On Friday, dozens of protesters tried to block the entrance to the Treasury Department for a second straight day.

Lopez Obrador's editorial came on the third day of a partial recount of 9 percent of the 130,000 polling places. Ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon has an advantage of less than 0.6 percent, or about 240,000 votes.

Lopez Obrador claims fraud and a dirty campaign are responsible for his rival's lead and insists a full recount is the only way to determine who is president-elect.

After campaigning in favor of staying out of the disputes of other nations, Lopez Obrador on Friday asked countries around the world to support his cause.

"We need the goodwill and support of those in the international community with a personal, philosophical or commercial interest in Mexico to encourage it to do the right thing and allow a full recount that will show, once and for all, that democracy is alive and well in this republic," he wrote.

Authorities have until Sunday to finish the partial recount. The seven-judge Federal Electoral Tribunal will review the results and then decide whether to declare a winner, annul the election or take other action.

On Thursday, Cesar Nava, secretary-general of the ruling National Action Party, said officials were about 40 percent done and had found no major problems. He said he expected the partial recount to finish late Friday or early Saturday.

Lopez Obrador plans to travel Saturday to Chiapas, where his Democratic Revolution Party is battling for the governor's post.

Democratic Revolution officials have accused President Vicente Fox's government of boosting its anti-poverty program to influence the presidential race nationwide, including in Chiapas, Mexico's poorest state.

In the run-up to Chiapas' August 20 gubernatorial vote, however, Fox's National Action Party complained that representatives of Lopez Obrador's party misused the same program to influence that election.

The program's national director, Rogelio Gomez-Hermosillo, told a news conference Friday that the initiative was not misused in either race.

Leftists protest at Mexico tax office, TV station

2006-08-11T23:36:00.000-07:00

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Leftists protest at Mexico tax office, TV station
Fri Aug 11, 2006 5:54 PM ET

Link:http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=winterOlympics&storyID=2006-08-11T215347Z_01_N28358335_RTRUKOC_0_US-MEXICO-ELECTION.xml

By Frank Jack Daniel

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Leftist demonstrators claiming electoral fraud blocked access to Mexico's main tax office on Friday, hitting the government in the pocket for backing Felipe Calderon, the winner of the election.

Several thousand protesters waving banners in support of leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador surrounded the building, run by the Finance Ministry, and prevented employees from entering for several hours.

Leftists have targeted banks and highway toll booths this week to demand a total recount of the election, narrowly won by conservative ruling party candidate Calderon.

Lopez Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, said the ministry was in league with business groups that financed Calderon's campaign.

"The Finance Ministry is one of the key points in the financing of the electoral fraud," said Marti Batres, head of the party in the capital.

Calderon, who believes a court will soon name him president, called for an end to the marches.

"Mexico will not advance with handouts, with tricks or with tension," he told a meeting of factory owners. "Mexico will advance with the work of all Mexicans. Let's get to work."

Several hundred Lopez Obrador followers protested outside studios of Televisa network., and pasted a poster reading "No To Lies" over an entrance.

Protests were stepped up after a court last weekend ordered a recount of votes from 9 percent of polling stations, rather than the full recount sought by Lopez Obrador.

The leftist called on foreigners to pressure the court to order a recount of all 40 million or so votes.

'GANDHI, MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.'

"We need the goodwill and support of those in the international community with a personal, philosophical or commercial interest in Mexico to encourage it to do the right thing and allow a full recount," Lopez Obrador said in an editorial in Friday's The New York Times.

He said his street protests, which have paralyzed the city center for almost two weeks, were in the tradition of peaceful civil resistance.

"In the spirit of Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we seek to make our voices heard. We lack millions for advertising to make our case," he wrote.

Electoral officials are due to finish the partial recount by the weekend.

The PRD representative to Mexico's electoral institute, Horacio Duarte, said votes had been tallied again at just under half of the nearly 12,000 polling stations involved in the recount. Most polling stations revised had inconsistencies, he said.

"Any change in these nearly 12,000 polling stations, even if it seems minimal, is a variation that can have an important impact," he said.

An earthquake of 6.0 magnitude that rattled Mexico City on Friday morning did not deter the protesters, many of whom have camped out in the vast Zocalo square in a giant sit-in.

"They are not going to get rid of us with an earthquake. The ones who are suffering a political quake are the PAN, the government and Felipe Calderon," Lopez Obrador's campaign manager Jesus Ortega said.

Financial markets have not been badly hit by the demonstrations.

The peso rose 0.75 percent, buoyed by news that Mexico will prepay $9 billion of debt with international lenders. Shares were up 1.13 percent.

UPDATE 2-Mexico leftist claims election recount proves fraud

2006-08-11T23:30:00.000-07:00

UPDATE 2-Mexico leftist claims election recount proves fraud
Fri Aug 11, 2006 10:55 PM ET

LINK: http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2006-08-12T025505Z_01_N11244254_RTRIDST_0_MEXICO-ELECTION-UPDATE-2-PICTURE.XML&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=InvArt-C1-ArticlePage2

(Recasts, updates with Lopez Obrador speech)

By Frank Jack Daniel

MEXICO CITY, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Mexico's opposition leader said on Friday a partial recount of votes from the presidential election he narrowly lost has shown so many errors that the top electoral court will have to declare him president-elect.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist who claims he was robbed in the July 2 election, said the recount of 9 percent of ballot boxes was only half complete but inconsistencies from the original tallies already topped 100,000 votes.

Conservative candidate Felipe Calderon won by 244,000 votes, or 0.58 of a percentage point, and his ruling party says the recounts are showing only minor changes in the results.

But Lopez Obrador, a fiery former mayor of Mexico City, said more than 40,000 votes had surfaced inside some ballot boxes and 60,000 disappeared from others.

He wants results annulled at those polling stations with the biggest irregularities. Many of them are in areas where Calderon won convincingly.

"What happens if the court applies the law and annuls those polling stations with grave irregularities? Well, the result is different," Lopez Obrador told thousands of supporters in Mexico City's vast Zocalo square on Friday night.

"So even with their own numbers ... they have to recognize that we won the presidency," he said.

Lopez Obrador's supporters have crippled central Mexico City for the past 12 days by setting up camps in the Zocalo and on the main boulevard that runs through its business district.

Their campaign also has included blockading the stock market building, the headquarters of international banks and government offices, as well as throwing open highway toll gates. They blocked access to Mexico's main tax office on Friday.

CALDERON WAITS

Calderon insists the vote was clean and believes the electoral court will soon name him president-elect. He called on Friday for an end to the marches.

"Mexico will not advance with handouts, with tricks or with tension," he told a meeting of factory owners. "Mexico will advance with the work of all Mexicans. Let's get to work."

The protests were stepped up after the electoral court last week ordered the partial recount of votes, rather than the full count being demanded by Lopez Obrador.

The recounts must be completed by Sunday. The court is then expected to decide whether or not to annul some results and order thousands more ballot boxes reopened.

Lopez Obrador warned he would not give up his fight even if the electoral court rules against him, while senior aides pressured the court to annul some results.

"These arithmetical inconsistencies are are emphatic proof of fraud," said Horacio Duarte, a senior aide to the leftist.

Saying his street protests were in the tradition of peaceful civil resistance, Lopez Obrador called on foreigners to press for a recount of all 41 million votes.

"In the spirit of Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we seek to make our voices heard," he wrote in Friday's New York Times.

Mexico's financial markets fear a long-running political crisis but have so far shrugged off the street demonstrations.

The peso currency rose 0.75 percent on Friday, buoyed by news that Mexico will prepay $9 billion of debt with international lenders. The stock market was up 1.13 percent.

Mexico: Obrador Builds an Ethics Code

2006-08-11T23:27:00.000-07:00

Left-wing leader speaks up for democracy

Email Article Print Article Raymundo Castillo Bautista (lielander)
LInk:http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=3&no=310664&rel_no=1

Six years ago, democracy went into effect for Mexico, but this transition has not been easy. The alleged conspiracy surrounding the vote count of the recent election, or as Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador alleges, "complot," will be seen in a new light in the coming days.

After July 2 when the preliminary results of the presidential elections were made available by the computer system known as PREP, left wing candidate Obrador alleged the process was corrupted by the presidential hand of Vicente Fox, the media duopoly of Televisa and TVAzteca, right wing candidate Felipe Calderon and his campaign team, and finally, the vicious behavior of Federal Electoral Institute (IFE, the nation's election watchdog).

▲ Working on democracy

ⓒ2006 Raymundo Castillo Bautista

Since the July 2 election, Obrador and his team decided to meet on this issue in Mexico City's Zocalo Plaza. These meetings were named "assembly" and the "peaceful civil resistance" started at the same point.

The second gathering was on July 15 and the third on July 30. The result of this last meeting was the establishment of permanent camps on Juarez Avenue until the resolution from the Federal Electoral Court (TRIFE, this legal institution declares the winner, the president, and solves irregularities on the electoral process) was heard on Aug. 5 on the "vote by vote" petition that circulated throughout the districts.

On Aug. 4, Obrador gave a speech in Zocalo about what should be done before and after TRIFE's resolution. In this talk, Obrador clarified the different meanings of the "vote by vote." After five days of meeting, he thanked everybody who attended. He said the main objective of the movement consists in seeking justice and democracy.

"We are fighting for our liberties, but we are fighting for all citizens' liberties, too," he said.

Obrador said people's votes should count. He argued that this is an act of justice, because justice is essential for building democracy. When he talked about the TRIFE, he said public institutions and the public employees must act with "integrity and decency." After this, Obrador introduced the different meanings of "vote by vote," that can be understood as an ethics code:

1. "Vote by vote" makes politics, finances and the economy stable.
2. "Vote by vote" means turning away from corruption.
3. "Vote by vote" creates a confident political conscience for all Mexican citizens.
4. "Vote by vote" creates social peace.
5. "Vote by vote" means people's dignity and morals come before money.
6. "Vote by vote" gives certainty for all those citizens who voted on July 2.
7. "Vote by vote" guarantees that democracy always opens doors.
8. "Vote by vote" maintains national decency.
9. "Vote by vote" is a new age for building stronger institutions.
10. "Vote by vote" is a path to forming a "legal state."
11. "Vote by vote" means removing irrational thinking.
12. "Vote by vote" unifies the actual divided citizenry in Mexico.
13. "Vote by vote" regards democracy.

These 13 points can be applied to a social, political and ethical code, because it traces a vision for the country with democratic values for citizens, public servants and institutions under a rational and illustrated dream, where decency, dignity and peace are the core values for Mexican development.

On Aug. 5, TRIFE, rejected Obrador's call for a total recount but left open the possibility for a recount in some districts. Camps continue to rally on Juarez Avenue. The "peaceful civil resistance" is making blockades and irregularities fall one by one, and democracy continues to knock on the door.

2006/08/11 오전 10:42
© 2006 Ohmynews

◀ Return to Article

The great Mexican election theft

2006-08-11T23:21:00.000-07:00

By Ignacio Ramonet
LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE

LINK: http://mondediplo.com/2006/08/01mexico

The election was a clear case of fraud on a massive scale, as the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, agreed, while the 25 European Union foreign ministers expressed “grave concern”. Indeed the Netherlands foreign minister declared: “It is important that we convey in the clearest possible terms the concern of the European Union and member states over the result of the presidential election”.

Reporters without Borders noted that that this election “followed four years of continuous and unprecedented degradation of the press in the country”.

Prominent figures in Washington, among them Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, affirmed that the US could not recognise the official results. The National Democratic Institute, chaired by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright; Freedom House, chaired by James Woolsey, former head of the CIA; the American Enterprise Institute, of which former president Gerald Ford is a moving spirit; the Open Society Institute and its founder and chairman George Soros, all made accusations about massive manipulation and called for economic sanctions. President Bush’s special envoy, the chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, Senator Richard Lugar, also declared openly: “It is apparent that there has been a concerted and forceful programme of election day fraud and abuse enacted with either the leadership or cooperation of governmental authorities.”

Perhaps you don’t remember reading any of these reactions to the recent presidential elections in Mexico? That’s because none of the eminent people or institutions I mentioned said a single word about what just happened in Mexico. The quotes are perfectly authentic but were actually made about the presidential elections in Ukraine on 23 November 2004 (1).

The international community and the usual organisations devoted to the defence of freedom that have been so active in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine and more recently in Belarus, have been notably silent about the electoral coup conducted before our eyes in Mexico (2). Imagine the global outcry if this election had been held in Venezuela and the victor, by the slightest margin of 0.56%, had been Hugo Chávez.

There were two main candidates in the Mexican election on 2 July: Felipe Calderón of the ruling Catholic rightwing National Action party (PAN), provisionally declared by the Federal Electoral Institute to be the winner, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the moderate leftwing Democratic Revolutionary party.Long before the campaign got under way, it was clear to President Vicente Fox (PAN) and the ruling authorities that López Obrador and his programme to end poverty must be beaten, by fair means or foul. Attempts were made to discredit him in 2004 by secret videotapes broadcast on the government-backed Televisa and TV Azteca channels, but without success.

In 2005, on the absurd pretext that a hospital approach road had failed to comply with building regulations, he was charged, found guilty, locked up and declared unfit to stand for election. Faced with massive demonstrations of support for him, the authorities were finally forced to restore his rights.

But the derogatory propaganda continued through the campaign, reaching alarming proportions (3). Latin American oligarchs and the US administration were panic-stricken, since the left was taking over almost everywhere, in Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Bolivia, as it once had in Cuba.

In this context, victory for López Obrador (if it is victory: the electoral court will deliver its verdict on 6 September) would have serious geopolitical consequences, which is something that Mexican bosses, the mass media and Washington want to avoid at all costs, even if it means sacrificing democracy.

However, López Obrador and the Mexican people may still have something to say on the subject.

Recounting Our Way to Democracy

2006-08-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

August 11, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Recounting Our Way to Democracy
By ANDRÉS MANUEL LÓPEZ OBRADOR
Mexico City
NOT since 1910, when another controversial election sparked a revolution, has Mexico been so fraught with political tension.
The largest demonstrations in our history are daily proof that millions of Mexicans want a full accounting of last month’s presidential election. My opponent, Felipe Calderón, currently holds a razor-thin lead of 243,000 votes out of 41 million cast, but Mexicans are still waiting for a president to be declared.
Unfortunately, the electoral tribunal responsible for ratifying the election results thwarted the wishes of many Mexicans and refused to approve a nationwide recount. Instead, their narrow ruling last Saturday allows for ballot boxes in only about 9 percent of polling places to be opened and reviewed.
This is simply insufficient for a national election where the margin was less than one percentage point — and where the tribunal itself acknowledged evidence of arithmetic mistakes and fraud, noting that there were errors at nearly 12,000 polling stations in 26 states.
It’s worth reviewing the history of this election. For months, voters were subjected to a campaign of fear. President Vicente Fox, who backed Mr. Calderón, told Mexicans to change the rider, but not the horse — a clear rebuke to the social policies to help the poor and disenfranchised that were at the heart of my campaign. Business groups spent millions of dollars in television and radio advertising that warned of an economic crisis were I to win.
It’s my contention that government programs were directed toward key states in the hope of garnering votes for Mr. Calderón. The United Nations Development Program went so far as to warn that such actions could improperly influence voters. Where support for my coalition was strong, applicants for government assistance were reportedly required to surrender their voter registration cards, thereby leaving them disenfranchised.
And then came the election. Final pre-election polls showed my coalition in the lead or tied with Mr. Calderón’s National Action Party. I believe that on election day there was direct manipulation of votes and tally sheets. Irregularities were apparent in tens of thousands of tally sheets. Without a crystal-clear recount, Mexico will have a president who lacks the moral authority to govern.
Public opinion backs this diagnosis. Polls show that at least a third of Mexican voters believe the election was fraudulent and nearly half support a full recount.
And yet the electoral tribunal has ordered an inexplicably restrictive recount. This defies comprehension, for if tally sheet alterations were widespread, the outcome could change with a handful of votes per station.
Our tribunals — unlike those in the United States — have been traditionally subordinated to political power. Mexico has a history of corrupt elections where the will of the people has been subverted by the wealthy and powerful. Grievances have now accumulated in the national consciousness, and this time we are not walking away from the problem. The citizens gathered with me in peaceful protest in the Zócalo, the capital’s grand central plaza, speak loudly and clearly: Enough is enough.
In the spirit of Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we seek to make our voices heard. We lack millions for advertising to make our case. We can only communicate our demand to count all the votes by peaceful protest.
After all, our aim is to strengthen, not damage, Mexico’s institutions, to force them to adopt greater transparency. Mexico’s credibility in the world will only increase if we clarify the results of this election.
We need the goodwill and support of those in the international community with a personal, philosophical or commercial interest in Mexico to encourage it to do the right thing and allow a full recount that will show, once and for all, that democracy is alive and well in this republic.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the mayor of Mexico City from 2001 to 2005, was a candidate for president in 2006, representing a coalition led by his Party of the Democratic Revolution. This article was translated from the Spanish by Rogelio Ramírez de la O.

Mexican recount begins as protests expand

2006-08-10T10:45:00.000-07:00

C B C . C A N e w s - F u l l S t o r y :
Mexican recount begins as protests expand
Last Updated Wed, 09 Aug 2006 13:02:57 EDT
CBC News
Mexican officials cracked open ballot boxes Wednesday and began a partial recount of last month's disputed presidential election as leftist protesters continued an aggressive campaign of civil disobedience.

link : http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/08/09/mexico-recount.html
Supporters of Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador attend a daily rally and speech in the Zocalo plaza in Mexico City on Tuesday. (Gregory Bull/Associated Press)
The recount of ballots collected at nearly 12,000 of the country's 130,000 polling stations is expected to take five days.
The top electoral court ordered the recount last week, ruling that there was sufficient evidence of reported irregularities at about nine per cent of the polling stations.
When the ruling was handed down, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party urged his followers to remain calm but promised more acts of civil disobedience.
Obrador's followers have occupied the capital for more than a week, hoping to push their demands for a full recount. Protesters have blockaded streets and pitched tents in the city's main square.
Obrador lost the July 2 election to Felipe Calderon and his National Action Party by less than 0.6 per cent, or roughly 240,000 of the 41 million ballots cast.
Calderon has denied Obrador's charges of fraud and corruption.
Demonstrators gathered outside the headquarters of two banks on Wednesday, as the protest moved outside the city's main square and roads.
On Tuesday, protesters rallied outside the Agriculture Department building, blocking its entrance. Others took over highway toll booths, waving motorists into Mexico City without charge.
Obrador spoke to tens of thousands of people at a Tuesday rally, urging them to remain strong.
"We are going to carry on our struggle," he said. "We are sure we will triumph."
The Federal Electoral Tribunal must declare a president-elect by Sept. 6 or annul the elections.
With files from the Associated Press
Copyright ©2006 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - All Rights Reserved

Mexican leftists block foreign-owned banks

2006-08-09T16:11:00.000-07:00

Partial recount of votes begins in disputed presidential election
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (Reuters) -- Thousands of Mexican leftists blockaded the offices of three major foreign-owned banks Wednesday in a new protest to force a full recount in a July 2 presidential election they claim was rigged.
Protesters surrounded Mexico City offices of U.S.-based Citigroup's Mexican unit Banamex, the Bancomer bank owned by Spain's BBVA and the British giant HSBC. They sat on the ground around the buildings and vowed to block access for several hours.
The leftists are backing Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who narrowly lost the presidential vote to conservative ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon and claims it was rigged.
Election officials began a recount of votes from 9 percent of polling stations on Wednesday in a bid to clear up the allegations and calm a crisis that has split the country.
But Lopez Obrador is demanding a full recount of all 41 million votes. His protesters have crippled Mexico City for the last 10 days by setting up tents in Zocalo square and on the main boulevard running through the business district.
They have vowed to extend the civil disobedience campaign with surprise protests across the country this week.
All but one of Mexico's major banks are in the hands of foreign companies, and the industry's sell-off has been a symbol of free market reforms in Mexico, so there was little surprise over the election protesters' new choice of target.
The protests had a nationalist tinge. Demonstrators draped a banner in Mexico's red, white and green colors over the front entrance to a large Banamex office in the Spanish colonial center of the capital.
"We're defending the homeland, not the presidency. The homeland is in danger," said Eugenia Rodriguez, 63, a retired teacher from rural San Luis Potosi state.
During the election campaign, Lopez Obrador had promised to reopen the books on a controversial $100 billion bailout of struggling private banks by the government during an economic crisis in the mid-1990s.
Most of the big banks that survived the crisis were later sold off to foreign financial giants.
"Banamex is really Citigroup, a foreign bank that ransacks the country," said Gerardo Fernandez, a spokesman for the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD. "It took more than 10 percent of the bank rescue."
Tallying expected to take 5 days
Judges, election officials and party representatives will spend up to five days checking the tallies at 11,839 voting stations to see if there is truth to Lopez Obrador's claims that he was cheated.
The recount at a center in Mexico City guarded by soldiers was painfully slow, with PRD representatives asking court actuaries to note every detail of proceedings.
It took about an hour to tally a few hundred votes in front of a judge. A leftist official videotaped the recount.
If the partial recounts show Lopez Obrador closing the gap on Calderon, they could force the electoral court to open more ballot boxes. If there is no change in the numbers, Lopez Obrador will come under heavy pressure to give up his fight.
Many fear the power struggle could turn violent, posing the biggest challenge to Mexican democracy since President Vicente Fox won power in 2000 and ended seven decades of one-party rule infamous for corruption and fraud-tainted elections.
Mexico's government has tightened Fox's personal security this week and also sent federal police to protect oil installations and the capital's international airport.
Calderon's margin of victory was about 244,000 votes, or just 0.58 percentage points, but he insists it was clean.
His team accuses Lopez Obrador and the PRD of using Mexico's class divide to try to win on the streets what they lost at the polls.
Cesar Nava, a senior Calderon aide, warned Tuesday that a long battle could undermine Mexico's hard-won stability.
"It will be at risk if the PRD persists with this attitude, with its violent discourse and its attempt to divide the country, split it between rich and poor, right and left, oppressors and oppressed," he said.
Despite fiery rhetoric on both sides and growing tension, there has so far been no violence at any of the protests, and Lopez Obrador insists his campaign will remain peaceful.
Copyright 2006 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Find this article at: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/08/09/mexico.elections.reut

THE AUSTRALIAN

2006-08-08T19:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,20068026,00.html
Mexican activists seize toll boothsFrom correspondents in Mexico City
09aug06

LEFTIST activists took over toll booths in Mexico's capital today and allowed cars to move through without paying to protest alleged fraud in the July 2 presidential vote, the local radio station Formato 21 reported.
"This action is courtesy of the coalition," said Gerardo Fernandez, a spokesman for the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), whose candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador barely lost the election.
PRD supporters seized the toll booths on three highways and let cars pass through free as they entered and left Mexico City.
One said it was only a temporary action, though without saying how long they would hold the toll booths.
Lopez Obrador lost the July 2 vote by a mere 0.58 per cent of the vote to conservative National Action Party candidate Felipe Calderon.
On Sunday, the country's elections tribunal rejected Mr Lopez Obrador's petition for a recount of all 41.7 million votes cast and ruled for a narrower review of votes in only nine per cent of the 130,000 voting stations.
Lopez Obrador has alleged that widespread fraud led to his conservative rival's victory.
In a speech to supporters in front of the electoral tribunal's offices, he vowed yesterday to keep up a campaign of peaceful protest against the fraud and to reform Mexico's institutions.

AMLO rejects tribunal decision, resistance to continue

2006-08-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

Americas
AMLO rejects tribunal decision, resistance to continue
by jen lawhorne Sunday Aug 6th, 2006 3:32 PM

link: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/08/06/18295128.php
Sunday in Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador rejected a high Mexico court’s resolution for a partial recount of votes from the presidential election and announced that civil resistance will continue until demands for a full recount are met.
-->
Sunday in Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador rejected a high Mexico court’s resolution for a partial recount of votes from the presidential election and announced that civil resistance will continue until demands for a full recount are met. The Federal Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF) announced the day before that only 9 percent of the votes cast in the July 2 national election will be recounted. Before a rally of hundreds of thousands of people Sunday, AMLO signaled that resistance would intensify. He called for the installment of an encampment in front of the TEPJF’s offices. Nightly national assemblies that have been held in the city center will now occur in front of the tribunal. With a continuous onslaught of civil disobedience and a political encampment occupying its downtown for a week, Mexico City, one of the largest cities in the world, has been the center of a determined struggle demanding a vote recount of the national presidential elections. Last Thursday entrances to the Mexican stock exchange were blocked for several hours while some main thoroughfares of downtown and the main plaza the Zocalo are the site of a massive encampment with large tents representing each of the Mexico’s 31 states and different social and organizations. Outside of Mexico City, citizens are taking action. The international airport of Acapulco is currently occupied by proponents of the vote recount. Two million people filled Mexico City’s streets July 30, in possibly the largest protest in the history of the country. More than a million marched just two weeks earlier. Shouts of “Voto por voto, casilla por casilla” (vote for vote, ballot for ballot) are heard everywhere as these people believe a recount will change the official results of the presidential election. Most of the people protested in support of center-left presidential candidate AMLO. The candidate from the Coalition for the Good of Everyone is contesting the official results of the Federal Election Institute (IFE), which handed the victory to opposition candidate Felipe Calderon by a margin of .58%. AMLO and his coalition immediately repudiated the results, claiming that voting inconsistencies and fraud smudged the electoral process. Both candidates, Calderon from the National Action Party (PAN) and AMLO, whose Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) makes up part of the coalition, have asserted their victories. AMLO believes that he should have won by more than 3 million votes. Since the July 2 voting day, AMLO has been at the TEPJF presenting evidence to convince the court to order a recount of the votes. The body responsible for vindicating the election, the TEPFJ has until the Aug. 31 to declare a definitive winner. Among the impugnable offenses the coalition is declaring are the stuffing of ballot boxes, voter intimidation, manipulation of tally results and the questionable annulment of 900,000 votes. AMLO supporters and individual citizens have been mobilizing for more than a month to demand the vote recount. By looking at the protest numbers, one would assume that a remarkable change is occuring in Mexico. People are convinced that dirty politics are at hand in the election decision. In a country where old school corruption and ruling class legacy call the shots, the protesters are fed-up with the political status-quo. The 2006 election proved that if anything Mexico is a geographically polarized country with the northern conservative states and its Catholic base favoring the PAN while the poor southern indigenous states voted for AMLO. Much of AMLO’s discourse involves populist themes of elevating the poor out of poverty and nostalgia for historic nationalism. The poverty that exists in Mexico today can be credited to the neoliberal program adopted more than twenty years ago where heavy borrowing, privatization of national industry and removal of subsidy protections have created a class of more than 40 million people who live in dire economic straits. AMLO has not presented a program to take Mexico off its neoliberal trajectory. He supports the North American Free Trade Agreement, while stating that some aspects would have to be adjusted. He said some provisions of NAFTA that remove importation tariffs on corn and beans would have to be renegotiated. The corn and bean sectors of the Mexican economy were hit hard after the implementation of NAFTA, after subsidized U.S. products were dumped in the Mexican market. All tariffs on all agricultural products are set to expire in 2008 for NAFTA countries. Instead, AMLO’s 50 campaign compromises to “restore national pride” present a large band-aid of a sentimental alternative project while affirming the continuance of the current macroeconomic model. Nonetheless, the center-left politics of the PRD could be a better option than the ultraright manifestations of the PAN. Since July 2, Calderon has purported himself as the rightful victor, arguing that the elections were clean and democratic. In efforts to delegitimatize the opposition, his speeches have painted the protests as violent and claimed himself to be a man of peace. A main promise of his campaign was to counter delinquence with hard action from the government. The shadow of suspicion of the probability of a fair election was cast long before July. AMLO, Mexico City’s former mayor, was targeted by current Mexican President Vicente Fox in 2005 in an unsuccessful campaign to force AMLO out of office and out of the presidential race. Also, in disregard of election law, Fox of the PAN fervently campaigned in favor of Calderon, who engaged in a so-called “dirty war” in his campaign against AMLO, using television spots that called AMLO a danger for Mexico. The fear-fed 2006 campaign of the PAN never shied from blatantly lying and breaking the law to damage AMLO’s candidacy. Using its corporate allies in the monopolized television market, the PAN freely produced spots where in one a politician stated, “If you rob, kidnap or kill, then don’t vote for me because the one that’s going to be afraid to be on the streets will be you.” The institution in charge of overseeing a “democratic” election, the IFE, took a while to intervene on behalf of the PRD’s solicitations that the PAN candidate conduct its campaign according to law. The IFE’s autonomy is highly dubious as an institution of the federal government under control of the current governing party, the PAN. The IFE’s official head, Luis Ugalde, is also Calderon’s longtime friend along with a few other IFE commissioners. The evidence that AMLO has presented to the TEPFJ include irregularities in 50,000 of the 130,000 polling stations. Charges include: registered voters that did not appear on voter lists, people that voted without credentials, undercapacitated polling station workers and thumbprints not showing up on ballots. (The Mexican elections are conducted on paper ballots with the confirmation of voter identity with the thumbprint) Some examples of possible fraud show that in the states of Guanajuato and Jalisco, some districts that had 400 registered voters, 700 votes were cast in favor of Calderon. The desires of two million people in the streets cannot be denied. Composed of mostly working class people, the protests might represent a shift of consciousness of Mexican people who have been attuned to the different roles of different players in the political process. Much of the people’s anger has been targeted at the television monopolies Televisa and TV Azteca, which have vociferously attacked AMLO. The die-hard following of AMLO shows no signs of letting up and with its head promulgating more resistance, Mexico could be on the brink of a massive social conflict.

Mexican Election Court Rejects Call for Vote Recount

2006-08-05T16:08:00.000-07:00

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aoo7bBc1qzYE&refer=home

(Update2)
Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Mexico's Federal Electoral Court rejected presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's demand for a full recount of the July 2 vote, ordering instead a review of the tally at fewer than 10 percent of polling places.

The court's seven judges ruled unanimously that Lopez Orbador, who lost the race according to election authorities by 0.6 percentage point, had no claim to a full recount because he challenged results in only 174 of 300 electoral districts -- and some of his fraud claims didn't stand up. The court agreed to review ballots from 11,839 of more than 130,000 polling places.

The limited scope of the recount makes its unlikely Felipe Calderon's 243,934 margin of victory will be erased, said Todd Eisenstadt, a professor of government at American University in Washington and author of a book on Mexican election law. Mexican bonds and currency rallied on expectations Calderon, a former energy minister under President Vicente Fox, will maintain Fox's policies in favor of free trade, low inflation and spending restraints.

``It would seem that Lopez Obrador has an increasingly uphill battle to get the results reversed,'' Eisenstadt said today in a telephone interview.

Gerardo Fernandez, a spokesman for Lopez Obrador's political party, wasn't available for comment. His party said Lopez Obrador will comment during a speech at Mexico City's downtown square at 7 p.m. (8 p.m. New York time.)

Peso-denominated bonds extended a three-week rally last week on anticipation the court would order a partial recount of votes that will certify Calderon as the winner of the presidential elections.

More Protests Threatened

The yield on Mexico's peso bond due in 2015, which moves inversely to the bond's price, fell 0.083 percentage points to 8.33 percent, to the lowest in four months. The peso rose 0.5 percent to 10.9006 per dollar, adding to seven weeks of gains.

Lopez Obrador, 52, had threatened to step up street protests if the court turned down his petition for a full recount. The judges must now rule on his claim that the election shouldn't be validated because of illegal interference on Calderon's behalf during the campaign by President Vicente Fox, who like Calderon is a member of the National Action Party, and companies. The court made its decision at a public session today in Mexico City,

``Our petition is just and justice is the fundamental condition to consolidate our democracy and the base for social harmony,'' Lopez Obrador said last night during a meeting with supporters in Mexico City's downtown square.

After the ruling was announced, dozens of Lopez Obrador supporters gathered outside the court today were shouting: ``We've lost,'' and ``If there's no solution, there'll be revolution.''

Six-Year Term

The candidate's followers have blocked 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) of the city's main avenue since July 30 and held three mass rallies in downtown Mexico City to pressure the court to hold a vote-by-vote review. The blockade on Reforma avenue turned the eight-lane boulevard into a tent city, causing hotels and businesses in the area to lose about $23 million a day, according to the local chamber of commerce.

The recount will begin on Aug. 9 and last five days, the court said. Judges at district offices will be in charge of the recount and a representative from each party will be present.

The court has until Aug. 31 to rule on all the challenges to the election and make a final tally of votes. By Sept. 6, the court must declare the election valid or not. The court's decisions cannot be appealed. Mexico's new president takes office for a six-year term on Dec. 1.

During his campaign, Calderon, 43, vowed to lower income taxes and attract more investment to boost job creation while maintaining Fox's spending restraints that helped slash annual inflation to 3 percent from 9 percent in 2000 and spurred banks to lend to consumers at fixed rates in pesos for the first time in decades.

Calderon had said he would accept the court's ruling no matter what because the election was clean and transparent.

``This is the correct decision,'' said German Martinez, who headed the team of lawyers for Calderon, in an interview on W Radio in Mexico City. ``This decision gives certainty to the final tally.''

Candidate Files Complaints

Lopez Obrador, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, promised to increase government spending to fight poverty and to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement to protect smaller farmers.

Lopez Obrador's legal team filed 230 separate complaints across the nation to challenge the election, according to the electoral court. The team filed on July 10 an almost 900-page lawsuit asking the court for a ballot-by-ballot recount of the election on July 10 and citing mathematical errors in the vote tally and about 900,000 nullified votes as evidence of systematic irregularities.

The lawsuit also claims the election campaign was tainted by unlawful interference by Fox and companies supporting Calderon and asks the court not to validate the election.

The court's ruling can bee seen as favorable for Lopez Obrador because the number of polling stations is large enough to pick up on any trend of systematic fraud, said Lorenzo Cordova, a professor with the National Autonomous University of Mexico who specializes in electoral law in an interview with a W Radio in Mexico City.

``This is a victory for'' Lopez Obrador,'' Cordova said. ``They are opening up the possibility to verify if his accusation are substantiated or not.''

To contact the reporter on this story:
Thomas Black in Monterrey, Mexico at tblack@bloomberg.net

Evidence of Election Fraud Grows in México

2006-08-05T16:01:00.000-07:00

By Chuck Collins and Joshua Holland, AlterNetPosted on August 2, 2006, Printed on August 5, 2006http://www.alternet.org/story/39763/
A month after more than 41 million Mexicans went to the polls to elect their next president, the country is still awaiting a result. A preliminary count of polling station tally sheets put conservative Felipe Calderón of the National Action Party (PAN) ahead with a slight lead over left-populist Andres Manuel López Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD). Both candidates have claimed victory, with López Obrador and his supporters holding vigils and protests across the country and calling for a vote-by-vote recount.
That hasn't kept a consensus from emerging in the commercial media that Calderón won by a small margin in a squeaky-clean election. In a hyperbolic editorial on July 30 -- one that bordered on the ridiculous -- the Washington Post accused López Obrador, known as AMLO to his supporters, of taking "a lesson from Joseph Stalin" and launching an "anti-democracy campaign" by demanding a manual recount and urging his supporters to take to the streets in peaceful protests. Calling the vote "a success story and a model for other nations," the editors concluded that it's "difficult to overstate the irresponsibility of Mr. López Obrador's actions."
Days after the election, the New York Times irresponsibly declared candidate Calderón the winner, even though no victor had been declared under Mexican law, and just this week, in an article about López Obrador's protests, the Times reported that López Obrador had "escalated his campaign to undo official results."
But there are no "official" results and probably won't be until after Sept. 1. Under Mexican law, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) is charged with running the elections and counting the vote. But only the country's Election Tribunal, known by its Mexican nickname as the "TRIFE," has the power to declare a victor (See here for background on the TRIFE). They have until Sept. 6 to rule on the election.
It appears that the U.S. media has become so enamored with the construct of the "anti-democratic" left in Latin America -- the ubiquitous "fiery populists" (a term that has described everyone from the centrist Lula da Silva to Hugo Chávez) -- that they are incapable of fulfilling their basic mandate to inform their readers when it comes to the political landscape south of the border. It's nothing short of journalistic malpractice.
But back in the real world, a growing body of credible evidence from mainstream Mexican journalists, independent election observers and respected scholars indicates that an attempt was made to deliver the presidency to Calderón. It includes a pattern of irregularities at the polls, interference by the ruling party and some very suspicious statistical patterns in the "official" results.
The TRIFE is now sifting through 900 pages of formal complaints lodged by López Obrador. Their ruling on those challenges will indicate how well México's electoral process holds up in a closely fought and highly polarized race.
Growing evidence of irregularities and fraud
México has a history of the party in power's using its clout to tip the election in its favor, and strict laws prohibiting ruling party interference were enacted in the 1990s. Election law prevented Vicente Fox, the outgoing PAN president, from making public statements of a partisan or political nature. But he overstepped this line many times in the 2006 campaign, including dozens of speeches reinforcing candidate Felipe Calderón's basic message that López Obrador was a "danger to México." In a well-publicized speech, candidate López Obrador responded, "With all respect, Mr. President, shut up. You sound like a chattering bird." Fox continued with these speeches until election authorities and public commentators warned Fox he was violating election laws.
The Fox administration also ran public service announcements touting government programs and services and promoting the vote. PAN saturated the television airwaves with "swift-boat" style attack ads against López Obrador, comparing him to Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and calling him a "danger to México." Election authorities eventually ordered these commercials off the air on the grounds that they were untrue and maligned the candidate's character, but critics believe they moved too slowly.
Under Mexican law, ruling party interference is a serious charge and grounds for annulling an election. In the last ten years, the same Electoral Tribunal judges that are reviewing AMLO's complaints annulled governors' races in Tabasco and Colima, based on ruling party interference. The Institutional Revolution Party (PRI), which ruled México for seven decades before the system was reformed in the 1990s, made vote buying and voter coercion into a high art form, and there is strong evidence that they were up to their old tricks in the 2006 election. With PRI governors in 17 of México's 31 states, election observers documented a significant number of examples of voters being offered money or receiving food or building materials in exchange for their PRI vote. In a country where half the citizens live in poverty and rely on different forms of government assistance, voters are often told that their public assistance is dependent on voting for the party in power. There are examples of PAN using similar practices, especially a well-documented case of funds diverted from a San Luis Potosi building program into PAN electoral races.
The Mexican electoral system has come a long way in two decades in implementing anti-fraud systems. But there are still several ways that results can be tampered with on election day. López Obrador's campaign and hundreds of independent election observers documented several hundred cases of "old fashioned" election-day fraud in making their case for a recount.
Here's how the system was supposed to work. On July 2, Mexicans voted at over 130,000 different polling stations, casting separate ballots for president, senator and federal deputy. Each political party was encouraged to have registered poll watchers at every polling station to observe the voting process and count at the end of the day. As international and Mexican election observers noted, however, problems emerged when there weren't enough independent and party observers to go around. In regions where one party was dominant, this created opportunities for vote shaving, ballot stuffing, lost ballots and other forms of fraud.
The PRD's strongest case for a recount comes from the fact that ballots in almost one-third of the country were not counted in the presence of independent observers. One analysis of IFE results found that there were 2,366 polling places where only a PAN observer was present. In these districts, Calderón beat López Obrador by a whopping 71-21 margin.
Other elements of PRD's legal challenge include documentation of several ballot boxes found in dumps in the PRD stronghold of México City. They also point to evidence such as the nonpartisan Civic Alliance's report documenting 17 polling sites in PAN-dominated Nuevo León, Michoacan and Querétaro, where the number of votes cast vastly exceeded the number of registered voters at a site.
Reports by international and domestic election observers affiliated with the Civic Alliance and Global Exchange stop short of claiming fraud in the elections. They laud the dedication of most poll workers they monitored and the preparations for the vote in most of the polling places, as well as the orderly and peaceful process overall. But the cumulative evidence is damning in such a closely contested race.
In the weeks after the election, PRD observers again sounded the alarm as sealed ballot packets were being illegally opened at IFE district offices in several PAN-dominated regions. PRD officials accused IFE officials of possibly tampering with ballots or attempting to cover up fraud in the event of a recount. The TRIFE ordered these offices to stop opening vote packets.
While the López Obrador campaign has not made major charges of "cyber fraud," there is an emerging controversy over the IFE's role in reporting who was ahead in the vote count. For the 2006 election, the IFE had developed a sophisticated system to provide preliminary results called the PREP. Relying on results being phoned in from a sample of precincts, the IFE could compile a credible picture of the vote. If the PREP showed one candidate with a clear majority, the system would have allowed Mexicans to go to sleep on election night knowing who their next president would be. But because of the razor close results, the PREP proved to be an inadequate measure.
Now research is emerging to suggest that the PREP results were cooked to create the appearance of a Calderón victory. Physicist Jorge López at the University of Texas, El Paso, conducted a statistical analysis of the PREP results and found that, as the results came in, the differential between the candidates' totals remained almost constant. One would expect that, as results from each party's geographic strongholds were counted, the gap between their totals would rise and would fall. In such a tight election, one would even expect the lead to change back and forth as the count progressed. None of that happened. The results of a third candidate, Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), fluctuated as expected.
He also noted that there was very little deviation between the actual results as they came in and the average results; in a normal, natural distribution, one would expect significant differences between the two (it should look something like a squashed bell-shaped curve). Dr. López concluded the pattern was "a clear indication that the data was manufactured by an algorithm and does not stand a chance at passing as data originated at the actual voting."
Luis Mochan, a physicist at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, did similar work. He noted that the PREP data was posted after the first 10,000 reports had been processed, and looked at whether those first 10,000 reports were consistent with the statistical trends for the rest of the day. When he plotted the data backwards, Calderón's vote total originated at zero, as is normal, but López Obrador began the day 126,000 votes in the hole.
Mochan and López both point out that the Calderón began the day building a large percentage lead -- seven points -- that decreased steadily throughout the day. The large early lead would have been handy from a psychological and political perspective, allowing Calderón to claim that he led all day long, but the results had to end in a close result given that polls conducted a week before the tally showed a statistical dead heat.
Mochan also notes gross discrepancies in the number of votes processed late in the evening: "At the end of the plot, we find intervals with more than 1,200 votes per [voting] booth. I understand that no booth was to receive more than 750 votes. Even more worrisome, some data points indicate a negative number of votes per booth."
Mochan notes that these statistical anomalies aren't definitive proof of anything. But economist James Galbraith, reviewing Mochan's data, speculated about a likely scenario that would fit the discrepancies seen that night:
Felipe Calderón started the night with an advantage in total votes, a gift from the authorities.
As the count progressed, this advantage was maintained by misreporting of the actual results. This enabled Calderón to claim that he had led through the entire process -- an argument greatly repeated but spurious in any case because it is only the final count that matters.
Toward the end of the count, further adjustments were made to support the appearance of a victory by Calderón.
Critics suggest that the IFE may have aggressively pushed to swiftly declare Calderón a victor, obviating the need for a poll-by-poll vote recount.
The U.S. media was also confused on the Wednesday after the vote when the IFE ordered all 300 district offices to review the tally sheets. It was widely reported as a "recount," when in fact very few ballots were actually counted. In some cases, such as when a tally sheet was illegible, the sealed ballot packets where opened and recounted. Almost every time that occurred, observers encountered significant errors in the vote count. In the state of México, one tally sheet recorded 88 votes for López Obrador when the recount of ballots found 188 votes. Whether it was human error or intentional vote shaving, in a tight election race, these examples gain heightened significance.
None of these reports in and of themselves constitute a smoking gun. But the questions they raise need to be answered. There is far more evidence pointing to fraud in the Mexican elections in 2006 than was made publicly available about Ukraine's contested vote in 2004. Comparing the media and political establishment's reactions to the two reveals the transparent dishonesty in backing Calderón's claim of victory; in 2004 many of the same voices that are now calling López Obrador "undemocratic" were screaming that the Ukrainian tally had to be annulled and only a new election would assure democracy in the former Soviet satellite. In both instances, the candidate who declared victory was friendly towards a powerful neighboring state; in 2004 that state was Russia, and two years later it's the United States. Forget about threatening México's fragile democratic institutions -- that makes all the difference to the editorial boards of the New York Times and the Washington Post.
According to the Mexican daily La Jornada, over two million supporters of López Obrador gathered in México City on Sunday, July 30, the largest public demonstration in México's history. Millions of voices chanted "vote by vote, poll by poll," calling on the Electoral Tribunal to order a recount. A poll released this week found that Mexicans, by a 20-point margin (48-28), want a vote-by-vote count. López Obrador has said he will call off protests when the Tribunal agrees to a recount and will honor its final decision.
As for the charge in the U.S. media that López Obrador is undermining democracy and the rule of law by calling on his supporters to protest, we believe that the rights of peaceful assembly and free speech are important democratic tenets. Public protests have played a historic part in México's three decade-long transition to democracy.
President and PAN leader Vicente Fox called for direct action when he believed he was victimized by electoral fraud in his race for the governorship of Guanajuato in 1991. Fox called on thousands of supporters to take to the streets and block highways, and the results were eventually overturned. Asked before the 2000 presidential election if he would do the same thing if he suspected fraud, he didn't hesitate to say "we will be very alert to any irregularities, and we will submit the appropriate legal accusations that are necessary. If there is any instability [as a result of those accusations], it will be due to whatever they have done fraudulently to avoid recognizing our victory."
While Calderón has opposed a ballot-by-ballot recount, even some of his staunchest supporters have argued that the process would assure Mexicans' faith in their electoral authorities and strengthen the country's young democracy. In a race where over 64 percent of Mexicans voted against him, Calderón, if he should prove victorious, will need all the legitimacy he can muster.
As México awaits the rulings of the electoral tribunal, tensions are high. The campaign -- often dirty -- and the close results have polarized the country. Given the context, the U.S. media's water-carrying for Calderón's campaign is anything but helpful. The fact that there have been no "official" results is not open to dispute, and until AMLO's allegations have been investigated, there is no way that anyone can say who will come out ahead.
Chuck Collins is the co-author of "Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity" (New Press). He is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and lives in Oaxaca, México. Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.

Speech of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the second information assembly in Mexico City's Zocalo, Sunday July 16th 2006

2006-07-31T23:47:00.000-07:00

I call on the candidate of the Right to accept a review of the voting records and a vote by vote recount"

from La Jornada, published in Rebelion July 17th 2006
Friends,

My deep thanks to all of you for your presence in this Second Information Assembly. With all my heart, many thanks to those of you who have come from different parts of the country marching, in an organized caravan or on your own account, in all those cases, of your own free will and paying the cost out of your own pockets.

There are citizens here from Aguascalientes, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Campeche, Coahuila, Colima, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Durango, Estado de México, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Michoacán, Morelos, Nayarit, Nuevo León, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, Yucatán, Zacatecas and from the Federal District. You and I know that this effort is not in vain. The cause we are defending is of great historic importance for Mexico.

You are here not just to support one person, but to defend the right of a people, that can never be given up, to elect its government freely. That is precisely why we ought to have the central object of our movement very clear. We are not only battling for the right to our legitimate triumph in the presidential election but for a higher cause, that of making democracy prevail in our country.

We cannot accept a regression, a retreat from democracy. In our country's recent political history, opening the space to be able to have free, equitable, clean elections has cost many sacrifices, including the lives of thousands of Mexicans.

We cannot accept that with illegality, money and tricks a privileged group wants to impose an illegitimate president. We cannot accept that the right of our people to a better life by democratic means be wiped out.

We cannot permit that they take away from us the right to hope. That is why, I repeat, the general objective of this movement is the defence of democracy.

In the use of our faculties and rights, we are applying to the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judicial Power to order the opening of the electoral packets and to carry out an authentic recount of the votes.

It is no accident that the slogan "vote by vote, box by box" has come from the people and has a good basis and solid reasons. I can inform you that as well as the hostile disposition of the IFE (1) during the electoral campaign, and the manipulation of the count systems and the inequity in the purchase of publicity in the communications media and the war of dirty tricks and the use of public programs and resources to help the candidate of the Right, and likewise the determined intervention of the President of the Republic, I can now tell you, and on top of all that, the results of the voting control records and the count were falsified.

For example, from the review we have carried out, 60 per cent of the total number of 130,788 voting records have "arithmetical errors" in quotes, that is to say there are thousands of voting control records where the total vote plus the unused ballots is greater or less than the number of votes received, thousands of voting control records where the total vote is greater or less than the number of ballots deposited and thousands of voting control records where the total vote plus the unused ballots is greater or less than the nominal list, by 10.

I can clarify further., there are more than a million and a half votes that are not based on electoral ballot papers or, put another way, the voting control records do not reflect the true vote because they add up to more or to fewer votes than the votes actually deposited in the ballot boxes.

From our point of view, this explains, in good measure, why, when it was permitted to open some electoral packets and do a recount in the District Councils, cases appeared where the candidate of the Right, fraudulently, had 100 to 200 votes more than they should and ourselves up to 100 votes less than we should, according to the box.

All this evidence was duly presented in the dissenting appeal that we made to the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judicial Power. So this institution has the quantitative and qualitative elements to be able to order the opening of the electoral packets and that they be counted vote by vote, box by box.

I am absolutely certain that if a recount is carried out it will be shown that we won the elections of July 2nd cleanly, legally and legitimately.

From this public square I call on the candidate of the Right to act responsibly and accept without any excuses, a review of the voting records and a vote by vote recount of all the boxes in the country. If he argues that he won, he has no reason to say no. Who owes nothing, fears nothing. I suggest that he considers the fact that not all the water of all the world's oceans can wash away the stain of a fraudulent election.

I also remind him that Mexico, our great country, and its people do not deserve to have a spurious President of the Republic with neither moral nor political authority.

Furthermore I repeat : it is not good enough for our adversaries to take refuge in legaloid arguments, or arguments of lack of time or of a technical nature in order to refuse to open the electoral packets when what is at stake is the country's democracy and political stability No one should be afraid that an election gets cleaned up, resolved and accepted before the eyes of Mexico and the world.

Transparency is not much to ask for. We repeat every last one of our demands:

For the political, economic and financial stability of the country ... vote by vote, box by box!
To move on and leave behind the political culture of mistrust.......vote by vote, box by box!
So all we Mexicans can be at peace with our civic conscience and with our selves....vote by vote, box by box!
To contribute to social peace....vote by vote, box by box!
So money no longer wins out over the people's dignity and morale.... vote by vote, box by box!
So not one Mexican who voted on July 2nd is left feeling dissatisfied or insulted....vote by vote, box by box!
So the doors to democracy are never slammed shut.......vote by vote, box by box!
To hold up high the honour of Mexico....vote by vote, box by box!
To strengthen the institutions......vote by vote, box by box!
To keep faith with legality....vote by vote, box by box!
To banish irrational confrontation .....vote by vote, box by box!
To build reconciliation and unity among Mexicans....vote by vote, box by box!

Friends,

While the Tribunal deliberates on our demand, I put for your consideration the following actions:

1. To reinforce the citizen camps located outside the 300 District Councils where the electoral packets are located. These camps are essential to avoid the illegal introduction or wihdrawal of ballots from the electoral packets The proposal is that these 300 camps turn into centres for decision making, information and communication in support of our cause where people from civil society, artists and intellectuals can meet and participate.

2. To carry out starting this week the first actions of civil peaceful resistance. For that purpose a citizen committee will be formed to decide what type of actions and in what circumstances they will be carried out in practice.

3. To celebrate the Third Informative Assembly on Sunday July 30th with a march like today's from the Museum of Antrhopology and History to the Zocalo at 11 in the morning. We know that our adversaries are counting on, among other things, the demoralisation and exhaustion of our movement. We are going to show them once more that when they want to trample on citizens' dignity and rights and attack democacy there are always women and men of principle and conviction who neither weary, nor much less surrender. As Carlos Monsivais has said, “anyone who only knows despondency and depression will never be worthy of pessimism".

Friends

All of those present and those who could not come, we ought to be proud of living these moments, so decisive for Mexico's public life.

I am convinced that not even with all the apparatus of the State, used menacingly, nor with all the money of a privileged elite, nor with all the manipulation that has been put into play will they be able to crush the free conscious and responsible will of millions of Mexicans. Let us not forget that we are millions of Mexicans ready to make our rights prevail. And this is the most powerful force.

I take this chance to acknowledge the leaders of the parties of the Coalition, the PRD, the PT , the Convergence and the networks of citizens and civil society for their fitting and faithful behaviour. We are living through times of definition and trial and all of us will know how to measure up to things.

As for my part, I again say to you : you can trust me that I am not going to betray the people of Mexico. Furthermore, I am convinced I am not alone, because we are all united.

Translated from Spanish into English by toni solo, a member of Tlaxcala (http://www.tlaxcala.es), the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation is Copyleft.

Translator's Notes
1. Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute

Call to Rally in SF on July 30 in support of demands of Mexico

2006-07-30T01:43:00.000-07:00

IN THIS MESSAGE:

1) Presentation: Mass Rallies Throughout Mexico on July 30 to Demand
Vote-by-Vote Recount in Presidential Election -- By Alan Benjamin
(Member, Exec. Bd., SF Labor Council)

2) Call to Rally in SF on July 30 in support of demands of Mexico
Mobilizations -- Letter from Frank Martin del Campo (SF/LCLAA)

3) California Federation of Labor COPE Convention Unanimously
Endorses "Vote-by-Vote" Recount Resolution submitted by San Francisco
Labor Council

4) Caravan to Mexicali, Mexico (across the border from Calexico) to
join July 30 march and rally to demand "Voto Por Voto" Recount

********************

1) Giant Mass Rallies Throughout Mexico on July 30 to Demand
Vote-by-Vote Recount in Presidential Election

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

On Sunday, July 16, an estimated 1.5 million people marched in
downtown Mexico City to protest the widespread fraud committed July 2
against Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the presidential candidate of
the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD).

The protesters, many of whom traveled one or two days by bus to
attend the rally, joined López Obrador in calling for a vote-by-vote
recount of the 41 million votes cast.

During the week leading up to this mass rally, the PRD submitted a
900-page document to the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) with
concrete evidence of vote tampering and computerized manipulation of
the results.

In his July 16 rally speech, López Obrador said that "credible
evidence of irregularities" existed in 72,000 of the 130,000 polling
stations across Mexico. He summoned the Mexican people to take to the
streets in even larger numbers on July 30 -- both in Mexico City and
across the country -- if the election officials did not comply with
the people's demand that every vote should be counted.

At a press conference in Mexico City on Thursday, July 27, López
Obrador noted that the Federal Electoral Institute had not budged in
its refusal to count every vote. He proclaimed himself
president-elect of Mexico, called upon all supporters of democratic
rights in Mexico to take to the streets once again this coming July
30 "in far greater numbers," and announced a "mass campaign of civil
disobedience beginning next Monday [July 31] to ensure that the will
of the Mexican people is not violated yet again."

López Obrador was referring here to the widespread fraud that
prevented then PRD presidential candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas from
becoming president of Mexico in 1988. Subsequent investigations
revealed that the fraud committed against Cárdenas was systematic and
incontrovertible. But, unlike López Obrador, Cárdenas at the time
refused to call upon the Mexican people to reject the fraud. By the
time the full story of the massive fraud came to light, it was
already too late; the vote had been stolen, the PRI remained in power.

The Mexican people have not forgotten what happened in 1988 -- nor
have they forgotten that this fraud paved the way for the signing of
the NAFTA Treaty, which has represented a wholesale attack on the
Mexican people and their long-cherished gains and rights (just as it
has represented a devastating attack on working people in the United
States and Canada).

The Mexican people were witness this past year to one of the most
vicious election campaigns in the history of Mexico -- a campaign
where the two major parties of the ruling rich in Mexico, the PAN and
the PRI, brazenly violated the Federal Election Institute's own
guidelines regarding election ads on radio and TV. Day after day,
these ads portrayed López Obrador as an ally of terrorists hell bent
on destroying the Mexican economy and body politic. This campaign was
coordinated by a U.S. PR firm and the U.S. Embassy in Mexico.

The Mexican people know that if the PRI and the PAN are allowed to
get away with electoral fraud this time around, new and far-deeper
attacks upon the Mexican working class and oppressed sectors of
society will take place at the hands of Felipe Calderón, the
presidential candidate of the PAN.

Calderón has pledged to privatize PEMEX, Mexico's cherished national
oil corporation. He has pledged to implement the new round of
NAFTA-plus agreements, which would mean the total dismantling of
Mexico's subsistence agriculture beginning Jan. 1, 2008. He has
pledged to deepen the destructive privatization agenda of his
predecessors.

López Obrador, hardly a radical candidate, has nonetheless opposed
the privatization of PEMEX and the NAFTA-plus agreement. This is the
reason the U.S. multinational corporations, who are champing at the
bit to get their hands on Mexico's oil, have financed this dirty war
against López Obrador ... and against the Mexican people, who refuse
to have their country and their resources pillaged any further by
foreign interests.

The Mexican people voted on July 2 to make López Obrador their next
president -- and he is the duly elected president of Mexico --
because, as thousands of banners and signs proclaimed in Mexico City
last July 16, "La Patria No Se Vende! La Patria Se Defiende!" This
means that "Our Country Is Not For Sale! Our Country Must Be
Defended!"

Support for the Mexican people's demand for a vote-by-vote recount
has extended way beyond Mexico's borders. One recent and extremely
important example is the unanimous vote that took place on July 26,
2006, at the COPE Convention of the California Federation of Labor,
held in Los Angeles, in support of the resolution submitted by the
San Francisco Labor Council calling for a vote-by-vote recount. [See
below.]

This coming Sunday, July 30, a demonstration will take place at the
Civic Center in San Francisco in solidarity with the Mexican people
and their demand for a recount -- "voto por voto." [See letter below
from Frank Martin del Campo.] Similar rallies will be taking place in
other cities across the United States.

We urge you to join these July 30 protest actions. This is not just a
Mexican question. To the extent the "free trade" agenda of the U.S.
government continues to be forced upon the Mexican people, including
by electoral fraud, more U.S. jobs will be exported to Mexico's
"maquiladora" sweatshops, and countless more Mexican people will risk
their lives crossing the border through the Arizona desert to find
any possible means to sustain their families back home in an
increasingly devastated Mexico.

We hope to see you there.

- Voto Por Voto!
- Sí Se Puede!

In solidarity,

Alan Benjamin
Member, Executive Board
San Francisco Labor Council

********************

2) Call to Rally in SF on July 30 in support of demands of Mexico Mobilizations

Sisters, Brothers, Compas,

Please join SF/LCLAA and all progressive and democratic trade
unionists this Sunday, July 30th at a Civic Center in San Francisco @
11:30 A.M.in a Solidarity Rally called in support of the massive
rally in Mexico City to demonstrate our support for the Vote by Vote
Count in the Mexican Presidential Election.

Music by Francisco Herrera. Please pass the word!

Favor de unirse a un rally este domingo, el 30 de julio a partir de
las 11:30 de la manana para manifestar apoyo con la mobilizacion en
el Zocalo por el Voto por Voto y la democracia en Mexico.

Cantante Francisco Herrera ofrece la musica.

Favor de pasar la palabra!

Paco Martín del Campo
Member, SEIU, US, SF/LCLAA
Cell (415) 407-7117
email: poderpopular@sbcglobal.net

********************

3) California Federation of Labor Endorses SFLC Resolution Urging
Vote-By-Vote Recount in Mexican Election 2006

[Note: The following resolution was adopted unanimously by the COPE
Convention of the California Federation of Labor, held July 25-26 in
Los Angeles. The resolution was submitted by the San Francisco Labor
Council. The resolution below has been left in the form presented by
the SF Labor Council. We do not yet have the final version adopted by
the California Federation of Labor. -- A.B.]

Whereas, the San Francisco Labor Council has provided concrete
assistance to ensure the participation of sisters and brothers of
Mexican nationality in the Mexican presidential election of 2006, and

Whereas, these sisters and brothers traveled over 1,000 miles to
secure their voting rights in said elections,

Whereas, complaints of election irregularities including, but not
limited to, uncounted ballots and corporate media manipulation have
been submitted and raised in said election, and

Whereas, the issue of election irregularities and the exclusion of
the disenfranchised is an increasing component of many elections here
and abroad, and

Whereas, the progressive Mexican union movement, the UNT, has
supported the call for a recount and has asked for support to all
other labor organizations, nationally and internationally;

Therefore be it resolved, the San Francisco Labor Council supports
the demand of a recount in the Mexican Presidential Election 06 vote
by vote (voto por voto).

Be it further resolved, this resolution shall be forwarded to the
California Federation of Labor and all other affiliated bodies for
their consideration and adoption.

********************

4) Caravan to Mexicali, Mexico (across the border from Calexico) to
join July 30 march and rally to demand "Voto Por Voto" Recount

Students from U.C. Irvine will be traveling to Mexicali, Mexico to
participate in the protests, scheduled to take place Sunday, July 30
in the afternoon.

If you are interested in driving to Mexicali to join the protest
actions, please contact Coral at or Gemma
Lopez Limon in Mexicali at .

Immediate Recount in Mexican Election Demanded by Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union

2006-07-27T22:42:00.000-07:00

NEWS FROM RWDSU
Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union/ UFCW
30 E. 29th Street, New York, NY 10016

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Zita Allen: 917-309-2210
July 27, 2006

Immediate Recount in Mexican Election Demanded by Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union Delegates at 20th Quadrennial Convention

Orlando, Florida -- The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union today called for a complete and immediate recount of all the votes cast for President in Mexico’s July 2, 2006 national elections. Delegates to the RWDSU 20th Quadrennial Convention unanimously passed a resolution calling for the recount following an address by Talia Vazquez, the U.S. representative of the Party of Democratic Resolution (PRD) and Lopez Obrador’s coordinator for Mexicans abroad.

RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum said, “The RWDSU represents many workers who are immigrants from Mexico and many of these joined with almost 40 million other Mexicans to vote in the July 2, 2006 elections to choose a new President and Legislature. The RWDSU is a democratic trade union that supports the will of the Mexican people to choose through free elections their representatives in government just as it supports the right of all peoples around the world to democratically elect their own leaders.”

The initial count in Mexico’s as yet unresolved national election has Lopez Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) coming in second to Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party (PAN) with the two separated by a razor thin 0.58 of one percentage point. The election has been clouded by widespread accusations of voter irregularity. Many Mexican trade unions have expressed deep concern and called for a recount.

Talia Vazquez told the RWDSU delegates that the fight for a vote-by-vote recount in Mexico is a fight for truth and fairness, “You are our brothers and sisters because you protect people’s human and civil rights. We don’t want you to say Lopez Obrador is the President of Mexico. We want you to join us in calling for a vote-by-vote recount. We are sure in that case Lopez Obrador is going to be the next President of Mexico.”

Recalling this country’s own controversial 2002 election and the role Florida played then, Appelbaum said, “What the RWDSU is saying here is that there has to be a fair and real count vote by vote. The only way that is going to happen is not if people sit back and say that it would be nice to hold a recount, but if the government of Mexico hears from not just the people who are pouring into the streets in Mexico but from people all over the world saying that we demand democracy.”

###
The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union represents 100,000 workers throughout the U.S. and Canada. The RWDSU is affiliated with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).

Invitation Voto Por Voto! Rally! Sunday, July 30, San Francisco, Ca. Civic Center 11:30 A.M.

2006-07-27T21:31:00.000-07:00

Sisters, Brothers, Compas, Amigos y Colegas

Please join SF/LCLAA and all progressive and democratic trade unionists this Sunday, July 30th at Civic Center @ 11:30 A.M.in a Solidarity Rally called in support of the massive rally in Mexico City to demonstrate our support for the Vote by Vote Count in the Mexican Presidential Election.

Music by Francisco Herrera. Please pass the word!

Favor de unirse a un rally este domingo, el 30 de julio a partir de las 11:30 de la manana para manifestar apoyo con la mobilizacion en el Zocalo por el Voto por Voto y la democracia en Mexico.

Cantante Francisco Herrera ofrece la musica.

Favor de pasar la palabra!

Paco Martín del Campo
Member, SEIU, US,SF/LCLAA
Cell (415) 407-7117
email: poderpopular@sbcglobal.net

Recount the Votes -- and Be Patient

2006-07-27T21:20:00.000-07:00

By Jorge de los Santos
The Washington Post
Thursday, July 27, 2006; A25

The 2000 U.S. presidential election was a bitter episode in American
history. It was one of the closest elections ever, with 537 votes in the
state of Florida separating the candidates. It took a month of court
challenges and recounts before the election was finally certified.

After Election Day, several weeks of legal maneuvering by the Bush and Gore
teams followed. Neither side was satisfied with the vote counts, and both
crafted plans of action and created their own "recount commissions." At the
end, after hearing all the arguments, the courts ultimately ruled, clearing
the way for a Bush presidency.

Independent studies by universities and news organizations concluded that
the different methods of counting the votes yielded different results. For
example, a lenient standard of counting the hanging chads gave the victory
to George W. Bush, while a strict standard gave it to Al Gore. But the
courts played the final part in the episode. They brought certainty and
finality to the dispute.

Now Mexico has its own soap opera version of an election. After a
nerve-racking election night, contradictory exit polls and preliminary
recounts that went up and down like a roller coaster, the conservative
candidate, Felipe Calderón, is holding a razor-thin lead over the
left-leaning candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. With a margin of
200,000 votes separating the candidates, and allegations of serious
irregularities, Mexico is still waiting for its new president.

This was a highly polarized campaign. Below-the-belt attacks and challenges
were widespread. Companies, nonprofits and even local governments interfered
and swayed public opinion. It was a take-no-prisoners battle for the
presidency. In some cases, flat-out lies and off-color comparisons were so
far from reality that the Mexican Electoral Institute resorted to outlawing
some TV ads.

The problems in the election are ubiquitous. Charges of ballot stuffing,
vote buying, misreported vote tallies and blatant support from elected
officials raise serious concerns about the quality and, most important, the
equality in this election. The good news for Mexico is that, as in the
United States, there are courts that will bring closure to the election.

The Federal Electoral Tribunal in Mexico will decide on the validity of any
allegations or irregularities. This court is the single institution with the
authority to announce the winner of the election. It has experience with
high-profile elections and difficult decisions and has even overturned the
elections in two Mexican states. It will be up to the court to officially
declare the winner.

A truly democratic electoral process is still a challenge in Mexico. López
Obrador is leading peaceful civil resistance to appease the frustrations of
the millions of people dissatisfied with the electoral process. These
frustrations can also be alleviated by the court, through a new recount.

A full recount of the votes, and transparent legal proceedings, would be
good for Mexico for several reasons. First, it would strengthen Mexico's
young democracy. Mexico has a long history of electoral fraud, and there are
still sour memories of the 1988 election, in which left-leaning Cuauhtémoc
Cárdenas was allegedly robbed of victory. A vote-by-vote count would ease
these worries and bring credibility.

Second, it would make government more effective. Either Calderón or López
Obrador will need to negotiate with Mexico's deeply divided Congress to
approve critical reforms. A genuine and lawfully recognized winner will be
able to negotiate across party lines. Since none of the parties will be
holding a majority in Congress, it will be impossible to govern without full
authority.

Third, it will bring legitimacy to the winner of the election. Each one of
the front-runners received only about one-third of the votes, and regardless
of who wins the election, the victor will win with less than one percentage
point difference. Approximately 65 percent of Mexicans will not have voted
for the new president, whether it is Calderón or López Obrador. That is why
the president will need as much clout as possible.

López Obrador has said that if he loses the recount, he will accept the
results, though under protest, and will call off any demonstrations. He has
also said that he will work over the next few years to create a civil
organization that will promote a national democracy project.

But Mexicans still have a month and a half before they know the outcome of
their election. In 2000 the United States also waited to find out who the
winner was. Thankfully, Mexico has an advantage over the United States in
its electoral process: enough time for legal challenges.

On Sept. 6, the Federal Electoral Tribunal will declare the winner. The
winner takes office on Dec. 1, which means that he will have ample time to
create a transition team, come up with a cabinet and get ready to tackle the
business of running a nation. Mexico just needs a little bit of patience.

The writer is currently U.S.-Mexico affairs adviser to Andrés Manuel López
Obrador. He is also director of the Pan-American initiative office at
Arizona State University and special adviser to the university president.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Mexican absentee ballots a dismal draw

2006-07-27T21:15:00.000-07:00

Fewer than 1 percent of presidential votes came from abroad
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Regina Reyes - Heroles
ASSOCIATED PRESS

TIM JOHNSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
Del Rosario Perez applied for an absentee ballot in January, but so few others did that Mexican officials might change the procedure.

MEXICO CITY — Mexico's first attempt at absentee voting was a flop, collecting a mere 33,111 ballots, but officials hope to make it cheaper and easier for Mexicans to vote from abroad in the next presidential election.
Millions of Mexicans living abroad were allowed to mail in presidential ballots for the first time in the July 2 election, a right migrants living in the United States spent years fighting for.
Electoral authorities counted 32,632 absentee ballots on July 2. Of those, 28,335 came from the United States — home to about 9 million Mexican expatriates. Officials annulled 479 ballots for irregularities.
The results confirmed fears that the effort, despite a $42 million budget, wasn't well publicized and was too complicated.
"It is a new right, and people aren't used to voting from abroad," Patricio Ballados, who coordinated the effort, said.
To get an absentee ballot, Mexicans had to be registered in Mexico, have a voting card and give a valid street address in the country where they were living. The next step was asking for a ballot by registered mail, which cost $9.
Many migrants couldn't afford registered mail. Even fewer had voting cards with them, and almost none wanted to make their addresses public.
Electoral officials plan to ask the new Congress, which will be sworn in Sept. 1, to allow voters to register from abroad and seek other ways to simplify the process.
Jose Jacques Medina, of the California-based Front of Mexicans Abroad, said the current procedure excluded many poorer Mexicans who might have voted for leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
The presidential race is undecided, with Lopez Obrador disputing an official count that gave ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon a slim lead.
Calderon won the absentee vote, receiving 58 percent of the ballots that arrived from other countries. Lopez Obrador got 34 percent of the absentee ballots and Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party received 4 percent.
"If they had allowed the votes of every Mexican living abroad, then Calderon would have lost," Medina said.
Of the more than 40 million votes cast July 2, less than 1 percent were from absentee ballots. Analysts say absentee ballots had little impact.
Al Rojas, national coordinator of the Front of Mexicans Abroad, said changes must be made so all Mexicans abroad can participate.
"They are Mexicans, here or there, and they should have the same rights as all Mexicans," he said.
It took months of negotiating to agree on the absentee-voting law. Making significant changes could be difficult.
Genaro Borrego, a senator who backed the law, said allowing people to register from abroad was "legally and logistically complicated."
With the next presidential race six years away, changes to the absentee-voting law could get shoved aside after the new Congress is sworn in.
"It will be hard to convince political parties to make important changes,"said Guadalupe Gonzalez, with the Center of Economic Teaching and Research. "I predict not much will happen."

Mexico: AMLO Sticks to Vote Recount

2006-07-25T08:23:00.000-07:00

Mexico, Jul 21 (Prensa Latina) Por el Bien de Todos leftwing
coalition presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO)
asserted he will not recognize any ruling of the Judicial Power
Electoral Court (TEPJF) without a vote-by-vote recount.

AMLO ratified his stance in an interview on Friday, describing the
July 2 elections as a fraud and condemning the triumphant seizure of
power by governing candidate Felipe Calderon, of the National Action
Party (PAN).

"Vote recount is the best for the nation," noted ANLO, who buttressed
his request by producing 21 packages of 30,000 votes with alleged
arithmetic errors.

He said his coalition possesses evidence of errors in 50,000 polling
booths, although there are indications of 72,000, accounting for
nearly 1.5 million votes.

Lopez Obrador, once more, urged Calderon to back the recount to
contribute to the clarification of electoral results.

Collaborators of Por el Bien de Todos are preparing complaints
against advisers of the Federal Election Institute as they maintain
that their conduct and handling of numbers was dubious and
irresponsible.

Civil and religious organizations have made it clear democracy cannot
be put in danger because social violence is likely to ignite if the
law is not respected.

Neither Felipe Calderon is the president-elect to call official
meetings or organize cabinets, nor AMLO is the defeated candidate who
has become a menace for the country, they contended.

Amid this situation, Calderon has only said election is over and
votes were counted. He is currently engaged in lobbying with PAN
governors, deputies and senators, and businessmen of various sectors
to take the streets and defend his "victory."

ef/ecq/rl/mf

Mexico Jacks up Anti-Fraud Actions

Mexico, Jul 21 (Prensa Latina) The symbolic closing of public
buildings and protest actions in front of government offices are
Friday among the actions by the civil resistance against what they
consider a fraud in the Mexico July 2 elections.

Officials from the For the Good of All coalition and the citizen
committee are coordinating daily demonstrations on the elections
results and demand from authorities a vote-by-vote recount.

Today afternoon, they will present new evidence over the
irregularities in more than 50,000 polling booths.

On Thursday, a group of coordinators of the coalition runner Andres
Manuel Lopez Obrador denounced illegal fixing by the Federal
Government to prioritize the electoral criterion above the
demographic ones and marginalization to win votes in favor of the
ruling National Action Party.

According to them, the current administration used the budget for
social programs to gain votes in favor of pro-government candidate
Felipe Calderon and used 17.3 percent of oil income to support the
electoral political spending.

The opposition alliance rejected the idea of annulling the elections
and warned it will present all possible proof to demonstrate
electoral fraud, mishandling of resources and manipulation of
citizens with promises and menaces by authorities.

In Mexico, Strains Along Democracy's Path

2006-07-24T22:14:00.000-07:00

Contested Vote Puts Electoral Reforms, Institutions to Test
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/24/AR2006072400991_pf.html

By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 25, 2006; A11

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's political future -- thrown into a state of uncertainty by a three-week electoral crisis -- will be decided in a boat-shaped building in this city's working-class south.

The modernist structure did not exist in 1988 during Mexico's previous disputed presidential election. Nor did the seven-magistrate electoral court it houses. Nor did a genuine Mexican democracy.

Now, pressures are building on Mexico to hold together that democratic system, which is still in its infancy six years after the end of one-party rule and a little over a decade after broad electoral reforms were enacted. The strain has raised questions about the integrity of vote-counters, and the electoral court faces major challenges ahead.

"Our transition to democracy is now entering a moment of great difficulty, of great danger," said Roger Bartra, a self-described leftist historian in Mexico City.

Stoked by ever-more incendiary rhetoric, the capital has tensed since the July 2 presidential balloting ended with a result that remains disputed. Felipe Calderón, dubbed the "virtual" winner by the Mexican news media, redoubled security after the parked sport-utility vehicle he was sitting in was kicked by protesters screaming obscenities. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the runner-up, has called for "peaceful civil resistance." And there are fears that López Obrador's mostly poor followers could resort to violence if their calls for a full recount fail.

Dozens of large posters, installed downtown by well-known artists who support a recount, have been torn apart, presumably by vandals who don't. Other demonstrators who want a recount have gone on a hunger strike and moved into tents outside the electoral court, known as the Federal Judicial Electoral Tribunal.

The votes were counted by the 16-year-old Federal Electoral Institute, an internationally respected government body. López Obrador accuses the institute of rigging computers to ensure Calderón's half-percentage-point victory and of ignoring manipulation of vote tally sheets in tens of thousands of polling places. His complaints, and Calderón's counterarguments, will be heard by the 10-year-old electoral tribunal, which has until Sept. 6 to certify a winner.

"It's good that we have the institutions to channel the challenges," said Carlos Heredia, who became a leading adviser to candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas after his loss in the contested 1988 presidential election. "What has me concerned is whether the institutions have the confidence of the citizenry -- that's the big question in the air."

A huge López Obrador rally earlier this month suggested that at least some do not have faith in the process. The candidate's supporters lampooned the system, booing each time the name of the electoral institute's chief, Luis Carlos Ugalde, was mentioned. Homemade banners read "No to the Institute of Electoral Fraud," and a sign, accompanied by a traditional Mexican skeleton figure, said "Democracy is dead."

Meanwhile, demonstrators have accused President Vicente Fox, of Calderón's National Action Party, of siding with Calderón and trying to limit their free-speech rights. Fox and Ugalde have responded to the attacks by vigorously defending the integrity of the electoral system.

But there are serious questions about the integrity of the elections court. A month before the election, the court's chief magistrate, Leonel Castillo, told Milenio magazine that the court would reject any recount request, a statement that would likely have led to demands for a recusal in a U.S. case.

Both the electoral institute, known as IFE, and the tribunal were created in the reform movement that followed international condemnation of the 1988 presidential election, which was won by the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, immortalized as "the perfect dictatorship" by author Mario Vargas Llosa.

Cárdenas, the left-leaning candidate who lost in 1988 after a suspicious election night computer failure, conceded following a brief attempt to use street protests to force a reevaluation of the results. He had no choice, said Manuel Camacho Solís, a top aide to the winning candidate, Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Camacho Solís, who later switched parties and has become a top López Obrador adviser, is now viewing an election crisis from the opposite side -- the one declared the loser.

"It was a completely different world in 1988," Camacho Solís said in an interview. "There was no IFE, we didn't have an open press, the United States government was supportive of the PRI; so was [Cuban President Fidel] Castro. The government was authoritarian, it controlled everything."

Faced with those obstacles, Cárdenas called off demonstrations, averting unrest and earning an enduring reputation for statesmanship.

López Obrador and his followers have something Cárdenas never had, Camacho Solís said: real hope that someone in authority, magistrates of an electoral court, will listen. But that sense of hope could vanish in an instant, he said, if López Obrador's core supporters in Mexico City's poorest neighborhoods think they aren't getting a fair hearing from the court.

"What's at risk now is our democratic progress backsliding," he said. "The society could become ungovernable. The choice is simple: recount or disorder."

Calderón's campaign advisers argue that a recount is unnecessary, and they accuse López Obrador of being a provocateur. In a recent television interview, López Obrador called his opponents "fascists" and suggested that subliminal messages were inserted by his opponents in potato chip and juice advertisements.

"One of the most important success stories of Mexico has been the normalizing of democratic elections," Arturo Sarukhan, a former Mexican consul general in New York and a Calderón adviser, said in an interview. "We have to make sure that the whims of one man, of one party, don't undermine the credibility of that system."

Top Calderón campaign officials concede that they have been losing the public relations war with López Obrador since both candidates claimed victory on election night. López Obrador's recount message is concise and catchy: "Vote by vote, polling place by polling place."

Calderón's pitch, which will form the basis of his legal argument against a recount, is more nuanced and doesn't fit neatly into a slogan. And his message has been less consistent.

Calderón argues that Mexican law allows recounts of polling places only where clear inconsistencies have been found. The vote-by-vote count, he says, already took place on election day. And the count was conducted, he says, by citizen poll workers who were given authority under election reforms that took vote-counting power away from the government.

The New York Times and the British newspaper, the Financial Times, have each called for a recount, as has the human rights group Global Exchange, which sent election observer teams to Mexico. Calderón has been courting influential publications in phone calls, and his top aides have been flying to the United States to plead his case to editorial boards and financial markets.

"I won the election. It's very important for people to know that," Calderón said in a recent telephone call to a top Washington Post editor. "The real dilemma is not whether the election was free and fair. The real dilemma is whether Mexico is going to solve these issues through mobilization in the streets or by following our laws and institutions."

López Obrador and his legal team now hold news conferences almost every day, each featuring new fraud allegations or new takes on old allegations. But some of the claims have not held up to scrutiny, raising questions among many observers about the strength of his case. At one polling place, a representative from López Obrador's own party rebutted the candidate's claims that a video showed a man there illegally stuffing a ballot box.

The tribunal that will decide the case is described as activist by many Mexican legal scholars. It has been more inclined to annul elections than to order recounts.

The magistrates are poring over 38 boxes of evidence presented by López Obrador. The court has shifted to 18-hour daily schedules to meet its Sept. 6 deadline. Out on the sidewalk, protesters keep vigil. They squint upward at the office wing of the court complex, which has balconies covered with potted plants, giving the place the appearance of an upscale apartment building.

The magistrates at work inside are limited to 10-year terms, and all but one -- a replacement for a magistrate who died -- is hearing the biggest case of his career as he prepares to step down. When the new president takes office in December, six of the magistrates who put him there, members of the first electoral tribunal of Mexico's young democracy, will already be gone.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Cliffhanger: Mexican Elections and Their Aftermath

2006-07-21T00:39:00.000-07:00

Cliffhanger: Mexican Elections and Their Aftermath
LInk: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/19/AR2006071901593_pf.html

Julia E. Sweig
Special to washingtonpost.com's Think Tank Town
Thursday, July 20, 2006; 12:00 AM

Cliffhanger. That's the best way to describe Mexico's still unresolved July 2 presidential elections. Conjuring memories in the United States of butterfly ballots and hanging chads, it may be as long as the end of August before Mexicans and the rest of the world know who will govern their country for the next six years.

The initial vote tally in the days immediately following the election showed that Felipe Calderón of the National Action Party (PAN) won by a slim margin of 35.89 percent over the 35.31 percent votes cast for Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, known by his initials, AMLO, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Of 41 million votes cast, the margin of difference is under a quarter million, exposing Mexico's deep divides, between north and south, rich and poor.

Although only Mexico's federal electoral tribunal -- the Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación (TRIFE) -- is legally empowered to pronounce who will be the next president, Calderón has declared himself the president-elect and is assembling his team, traveling around the country thanking his supporters. President Fox has offered his congratulations, as have several other heads of state, though not, as yet, President Bush.

That's because AMLO and the PRD have presented evidence of fraud and other irregularities to the TRIFE, challenging the results and asking for a vote-by-vote or partial recount. Ever since 1988 when the PRD's candidate won the election but was denied the presidency by the regime then in power, the Mexican left, the PRD and AMLO have harbored suspicions that playing by the rules set by Mexico's electoral institutions might never deliver the presidency. Calderón has been acting presidential and the media, and business elite have called for strict adherence by the TRIFE to the law, which does not affirmatively allow for a total recount. But AMLO and the PRD have staged mass mobilizations throughout Mexico as a form of counter-pressure to encourage the TRIFE to accept demands for a recount. Whatever the outcome, observers expect AMLO to respect the court's decision. The risk of not conducting some form of recount is that Mexico's electoral institutions will lose their legitimacy and, as a result, significantly weaken Mexico's hard-won democracy.

Both candidates recognize Mexico's profound poverty and social divide as a core challenge. AMLO's campaign platform focused on helping Mexico's poor and ending privileges for the wealthiest Mexicans in order to close the income gap. He promised to increase social spending while keeping a close watch on inflation and maintaining fiscal discipline. Calderón campaigned on a promise to continue President Fox's largely successful macroeconomic policies in order to stimulate growth and employment, promising more private investment and education spending.

Whether or not a recount is ordered, and whoever is declared the winner, the shallow mandate of this election and its legacy of political polarization and distrust will weaken the next president's capacity to build a coalition in the legislature and to carry out the numerous reforms left incomplete by the Fox government. According to Pamela Starr, author of a newly released Council on Foreign Relations Special Report, Challenges for a Postelection Mexico: Issues for U.S. Policy, the next Mexican president will have to contend with Mexico's domestic policy issues, including "fiscal dependence on volatile petroleum revenues, enormous pension liabilities that expand with Mexico's aging population, insufficient investment capital in the energy sector, declining global competitiveness, weak job creation and growth, corruption, inadequate rule of law, and increasing crime." Entrenched business and labor interests and vastly inadequate revenue from taxes will further erode the weakened mandate of either of the two candidates.

What does this all mean for the United States? According to Starr, with a 2,000-mile shared border, the United States needs a politically and economically stable Mexico to find a mutually viable solution to the migration question, to coordinate efforts to control drug trafficking, and to enhance the competitiveness for the U.S. economy. Whoever is the next president, the United States can expect him to govern with a more nationalistic tone and to shun the openly warm embrace Fox extended to the United States for much of his presidency. Starr's report concludes that, "the United States should take the lead in changing the tone of the relationship by reaching out to Mexico's new president as a valued policy partner, and Mexico should reciprocate by thinking realistically about migration and attacking its pending domestic economic and security agenda." The report recommends that the United States enhance technical and financial assistance to improve the training, pay, and effectiveness of Mexico's federal and state police forces. Mexico for its part "needs to overcome its historic sensitivity to joint operations with U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies."

Because of the unpredictable outcome of these elections and their overall polarizing effect on Mexico's democracy, no one in Washington should have any illusion that a bilateral agenda with the new president will be any easier to carry out than it was with Fox, who came in with a much stronger mandate. Moreover, Mexico policy in the United States may well fall victim to our own domestic political calendar, at least until after the midterm elections. Fortunately, because Mexicans won't inaugurate their new president until December 2006, there may well be some breathing space before the U.S. presidential election season gears up for both countries to map out future directions for the bilateral relationship.

Julia E. Sweig is the Nelson and David Rockefeller senior fellow for Latin America studies and director for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is author of Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century.

© 2006 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive

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Doing maths in Mexico

2006-07-20T20:23:00.000-07:00

James K Galbraith
July 17, 2006 11:30 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/james_k_galbraith/2006/07/the_mexican_standoff.html

The election was stolen. It's not in doubt. Colin Powell admits it. The National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute both admit it. Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana - a Republican - was emphatic: there had been "a concerted and forceful program of election-day fraud and abuse"; he "had heard" of employers telling their workers how to vote; yet he had also seen the fire of the resisting young, "not prepared to be intimidated".

In Washington, Zbigniew Brzezinski has demanded that the results be set aside and a new vote taken, under the eye - no less - of the United Nations. In The New York Times, Steven Lee Myers decried "the use of government resources on behalf of loyal candidates and the state's control over the media" - factors, he said, were akin to practices in "Putin's Russia".

I wrote those words two years ago, for Salon. They referred, of course, to the election in the Ukraine, where the presidential candidate favoured by the powerful neighbouring state (Russia) had claimed a tainted victory in a tight race. The thunder from America, citadel of democracy, was overwhelming. Nothing mattered more than to see the vote annulled, a new election held. The subsequent installation of Viktor Yuschenko as President of Ukraine was widely celebrated as a great triumph for democracy.
But that, of course, was in another country. Two weeks have now passed since the presidential vote in Mexico, pitting Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the party for a Democratic Revolution (PRD) against Felipe Calderón of the ruling National Action party (PAN). The candidate who trailed, López Obrador, has explicitly charged that the count was cooked. He has challenged the result in court. No final resolution is due before September.
Yet the stalwarts of democracy outside Mexico are silent. Bush has congratulated Calderón, not waiting for the court to rule. Reuters and Bloomberg echo the confidence of the elites that Calderón will win in court - never mind whether he won at the polls. When The New York Times is heard from, the headlines tell us of the "leftist claims" about the occurrence of fraud, while Calderón is described as "presidential." The Times never doubted that fraud did occur in Ukraine. In Mexico on the other hand, it seemingly renounces any duty to examine the facts on the ground.
Here's one difference between the two situations. In Ukraine, it was extremely hard to learn exactly what the evidence of fraudulence actually was. In Mexico, it is extremely easy. That is because the Mexican electoral authority, known as IFE, posted the ongoing count on its website in real time, an initiative called PREP. Independent scholars kept a record of PREP as the night progressed. A statistical analysis of that record does not, of course, constitute proof. But it brings to mind Henry David Thoreau's remark that circumstantial evidence can be very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.
To begin with, a simple matter. According to an article by Roberto González Amador in La Jornada, the vote totals don't match the percentages reported. Given the just over 15m votes Calderón was said to have earned, the percentage reported for him, 35.89%, could only be obtained by including invalid ballots in the total reported. If, on the other hand, one takes the overall vote total and the percentage reported for Calderón as correct, then his total vote must have been substantially less than was reported.
The same is true for AMLO and the other candidates, and there is a total shortfall of over a million votes between what can be justified by the official percentages of the valid votes, and the sum of votes reported. The discrepancy proves nothing, but even if it is only a simple error, it certainly seems to cast doubt over the competence of the count.
Let's turn to the harder stuff. An analysis by the physicist Luis Mochán of UNAM based on the realtime evolution of the vote count and the distribution of vote totals by polling place can be found here, and in greater detail in Spanish, here. It's not easy reading, but is immensely worthwhile. It's possible that Mochán's work inaugurates a new era in realtime checking for vote fraud, made possible by the simplicity of Mexico's first-past-the-post direct vote and the rich electoral data sets that can be made instantly available. Call it the age of transparency, in collision with an oligarchy of thugs.
Mochán's work calls attention to at least four important anomalies in the count.
1. Calderón's percentage lead in the count started at around seven percentage points, and diminished steadily in percentage terms through the first part of the count. This corresponded to a remarkably constant absolute differential between Calderón and AMLO as the count progressed. Is this normal? The count depended on the arrival of the boxes; if this were absolutely random then the proportions should have held roughly constant while absolute differentials widened, as actually happened to the differential between Calderón and the third major candidate, Madrazo of the PRI, for most of the evening. Why did the Calderón-AMLO differential follow a different rule?
2. The PREP results went on view only after the first 10,000 boxes had been processed. If those first 10,000 boxes resembled what came later, then extrapolating backward should produce a line intersecting the origin - each candidate should have started with zero votes. For Calderón this is the case, but for AMLO it is not: the AMLO intercept is actually at minus 126,000 votes. Thus, the first 10,000 boxes were markedly different from those that followed. How?
3. There are gross anomalies in the number of votes counted per five-minute interval as the count finishes. Over the course of the evening, the pattern of vote counts set a normal range for this variable. As the last boxes came in, however, it was radically violated, with many more votes piled in, per interval, than was normal before. Moreover, toward the very end, PREP reset the box count, which regressed from 127,936 at 13.17 on July 3 to 127,713 at 13.50, meaning that records for 223 boxes disappeared. 33 minutes had by then passed with no updates. When they resumed, there were updates with absurd results: more than 6000 votes per box at 13:57, and then updates with large negative votes per box at 13:57 and 14:03.
4. From a statistical point of view, the distribution across boxes of votes earned by each candidate should be smooth. For Madrazo it is. But for Calderón and AMLO it isn't. In Calderón's case, the distribution appears to be shifted out, with the shift localized among the last 40,000 boxes counted. In the case of AMLO, the distribution tails off abruptly from its peak. It is in the difference between the slightly fat distribution for Calderón and the shaved distribution for AMLO that the difference in the final outcome is to be found. A graph of the differences in Calderón and AMLO's votes per box, which ought to follow a normal curve, does not. Over a certain range, Calderón's margins appear abnormally large.
Professor Mochán does not claim to explain these anomalies. More time and closer investigation remain necessary. But he does conclude that it "is reasonable to suspect that there could have been a manipulation of the results reported by the PREP." It is true that the PREP is not an official count - that was done at the district offices, with equally serious anomalies alleged. But PREP reported the box-by-box results as they flowed in-and as such it constitutes a vital instrument for the detection of patterns of manipulation and fraud.
Let me go further than Mochán. The evidence he assembles is consistent with the following possibilities:
1. That Felipe Calderón started the night with an advantage in total votes, a gift from the authorities.
2. That as the count progressed this advantage was maintained by misreporting of the actual results. This enabled Calderón to claim that he had led through the entire process - an argument greatly repeated but spurious in any case because it is only the final count that matters.
3. That toward the end of the count, further adjustments were made to support the appearance of a victory by Calderón.
Add these elements together, and there is no reason to accept the almost universal view that the election was close. AMLO might have won by a mile.
If you want sound and colour, there's plenty of that too: actual tally sheets showing that votes counted for AMLO were reduced, taped conspiratorial telephone conversations, videotapes that may or may not show guilty behaviour; the endorsement of Calderón by Fox; the inclusion of PAN themes in corporate advertising. As a Mexican correspondent writes, "the fraud is a p-r-o-c-e-s-s." In late news, La Jornada on July 16 charges that 40% of the vote packets have been illegally reopened by the IFE since the election. This amounts to a pre-emptive strike against the credibility of any recount. The charges, if true, are tantamount to proof of fraud, evidence prima facie that AMLO won the election.
Is it time to move on? The numbers suggest otherwise. By demonstrating the possibility of detecting fraud before the results of an election are officially decided, they also inaugurate a new phase in the struggle for the recognition of a democratic vote. The Mexican people, who marched through their capital today, appear determined to carry that struggle forward until justice is won. Unlike the so-called Democratic Party in the United States six years back, Andres Manuel López Obrador appears, for now, determined not to compromise with fraud.
And for those of us outside Mexico, we must decide where we stand: with democracy ... or quietly on the sidelines?

Mexican Election Far from Over As Plot Thickens

2006-07-16T00:33:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 12 July 2006, 8:34 am
Press Release: Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Council On Hemispheric Affairs
MONITORING POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND DIPLOMATIC
ISSUES AFFECTING THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
uesday, July 11th, 2006
Press Releases, Mexico, Releases

Mexican Election Still Far from Over, as the Plot Somewhat Thickens
• More than a week after Mexico’s presidential election, there is still no clear winner

• Although ruling PAN party candidate Felipe Calderón ostensibly won by the slimmest of margins in last week’s re-tabulation of votes, a long and what could prove to be a turbulent legal process lies ahead before he can actually be certified as president-elect

• Left-leaning PRD candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador has rightly protested the results of the election, citing mounting evidence of fraud and malfeasance. He is seeking victory not by means of violence and hysteria, but by a vote-by-vote recount

• While the electoral authorities have repeatedly preached about their body’s own accomplishments, in fact, IFE’s credibility is flagging. Given the process in which it evolved, candidate López Obrador has every right and reason to challenge IFE’s role and the manner in which the ruling party conducted itself. The PRD’s search for validation of the election is merited

Less than a week since a retabulation of gross vote totals from Mexico’s July 2 ballot gave him a razor-thin margin, Felipe Calderón has begun to lay out plans for a yet-to-be confirmed presidency. But while he is somewhat presumptuously behaving as a president-elect and receiving congratulations from Bush, Harper and Zapatero among others, the president of the U.S. and the prime ministers of Canada and Spain would be well advised to take note of the fact that the election is still far from having witnessed a definitive outcome. The final tally, released last Thursday by Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), has been repeatedly challenged by Calderón’s opponent, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the PRD, who has asserted that the vote was plagued by irregularities and possibly even fraud.

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Late Sunday night, the PRD filed a massive brief with the country’s Supreme Electoral Court (TEPJF) which presented evidence of various election-day missteps and misdeeds (often on the part of the IFE itself), and petitioned the judicial body to order a vote-by-vote recount. The TEPJF – the only body officially empowered to declare a winner in the election – has yet to put its stamp on Calderón’s victory, and is unlikely to do so quickly, as it is not legally required to announce a winner until the beginning of September. Given the mounting evidence of electoral malfeasance, an uneventful ratification of a PAN triumph is unlikely to be forthcoming, despite the child-like eagerness of Washington, business leaders, and a friendly media to unwrap their July Fourth present to the Mexican people, in this instance a Calderón presidency.

Exposing the Underbelly

On Saturday, López Obrador rallied over 250,000 supporters to the Zócalo in Mexico City for an “informative assembly.” The perredista called on the crowd to participate in numerous future civic demonstrations in defense of the vote, yet exhorted it to respect the rights of the citizenry by not disrupting daily life with such actions as highway blockades. If López Obrador repeatedly emphasized that the effort was to be a peaceful one, he was vehement in his assertions that the election had been tainted by wrongdoing. It is becoming increasingly clear that these allegations are not just hot air.

At the meeting, PRD campaign coordinator Jesus Ortega revealed tapes obtained by the party which purportedly pointed to officially sanctioned fraud. The recordings included conversations between the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) governor of Tamaulipas and dissident priista cum Calderón-backer, Elba Ester Gordillo, as well as discussions between the governor and the Secretary of Communications and Transport. While the tapes fell short of explicitly detailing fraud, they suggested that PRI leaders, aware of their party’s freefall, were prepared to privately defect to the PAN, offering Calderón the services of their still-powerful (and frequently fraudulent) electoral machinery in exchange for later political considerations.

Complaints in All Directions

Monday morning witnessed further scandal, as López Obrador presented damning videos which apparently showed ballot boxes being stuffed in Queretaro and Guanajuato. The reemergence of such instances of vintage PRI era fraud, however isolated such instances may turn out to have been in this election, has begun to project a tainted public perception of the vote. Such new evidence added to an already lengthy list of PRD complaints about the lack of transparency of the July 2 election, may have produced, in retrospect, a deeply blemished product. The complaints lodged with the TEJPF include further allegations of ballot box tampering and charges about the manner in which some IFE personnel conducted the election and processed the results – these are important claims and deserve the dignity of being heard.

An Impartial Referee?

The IFE, which prior to the July 2 vote received high marks for public confidence, has watched its prestige sedulously evaporate in the past week. The Institute’s lauded system of preliminary results, the PREP, came under heavy fire as a series of baffling and unclear decisions seemed to point to pro-Calderón manipulation of the numbers, including the move to exclude nearly three million votes from the initial totals, which gave the panista a considerably larger apparent margin than he ultimately was able to attract.

Even the retabulation of vote totals has come under fire, as the PRD has asserted that the process had been overly hurried and that evidence of purported tampering was not adequately addressed in some cases. IFE president Luis Carlos Ugalde’s smug and self-serving assurances that the results were unimpeachable, are new clashes with the growing evidence that the process was far from perfect and represented an attitude of utmost imprudence, especially considering that the margin was so slender that a difference of two votes per polling place could have swung the election.

Indeed, despite the IFE’s supercilious effort to sell itself as infallible to both Mexican society and the international community, the glimmering reputation that the body sought to create has been revealed to be more myth than fact. The Institute, which had gained considerable renown for its role in promoting a smooth transition and bolstering democracy in the 1997 midterm and 2000 presidential elections, has now lost much of its credibility as an impartial and competent administrator of elections.

The IFE’s current general council, elected by the Chamber of Deputies in 2003, was effectively imposed by the PRI and PAN, as the PRD lacked sufficient representation to win approval for its nominees. Since then, partisan leanings have been clearly detected in the council members’ votes, with numerous sources – including the prominent Mexico City daily Reforma – highlighting the panista or priista tendencies of various supposedly independent representatives on its panel. Some have alleged that the IFE has a heavy pro-government bias, citing the body’s unhurried attempts to control defamatory PAN television ads comparing López Obrador to Chávez, and its “slap-on-the-wrist” sanctions for such actions. In this episode alone, IFE’s behavior was far from the image of austere autonomy and rectitude that it sought for itself, and gave the appearance of throwing the election in Calderón’s direction.

An Imagined President

This predisposition to rule in favor of the status quo may have been compounded in the days after July second. In June, COHA noted that “In the event of even isolated incidents of contested results in what could be an extremely close election, the IFE would face tremendous pressures to resolve the dispute quickly.” Sadly, this situation did emerge, and Ugalde, spurred perhaps by ambition or hubris, may ultimately have bowed to such pressure: for example, his decision to declare a Calderón victory was seen as usurping the power of the TEPJF, and seemingly went beyond the yardage allocated to him by the rules.

Despite the growing evidence of election day wrongdoing, and with IFE’s authority and credibility waning, there has been a rush among certain sectors to anoint Calderón as Mexico’s next president. This was nothing short of premature. The panista may indeed ultimately be confirmed by the TEPJF (also referred to as the TRIFE), yet this has yet to occur, and there is certain to be a protracted legal battle before such a resolution is attained.

In this unresolved and unsettled context, it is crucial that the media, both Mexican and international, not present the false impression that Calderón’s victory is a fait acompli, plainly inevitable, and that the PRD’s protests are merely sour grapes. Numerous intellectuals and statesmen have affirmed the propriety of López Obrador’s legal strategy, arguing that it is a responsible and perfectly constitutional measure. Unfortunately, when it comes to Mexico, the U.S. press finds it easy enough to turn to such reliable pro-panista warblers, as Enrique Krauze and Jorge Casteñada, the latter a peripatetic ideologue who has become a spin doctor extraordinare for the Calderón campaign, while the former concerns his unwarranted disdain for López Obrador by emitting an illegitimate farrago of concoctions that does the author no great honor.

Not only is it premature to proclaim Calderón victorious, it is also irresponsible: if the media continues to perpetuate this misleading image, to which the aforementioned Calderonistas have mightily contributed in their mythologies in the U.S. media, the country’s citizenry will be ill served. They may also be laying the groundwork for instability in the event of a TEPJF ruling in favor of a recount. All concerned—and this means the entire Mexican political spectrum—must believe in but one god and that must be of obeying the law, eschewing violence, respect in peaceful protest and honor the will of the majority, however it manifests itself.

Calderón Hunts for Backing

It is not so much to charge that Calderón’s squalid tactic of inventing a scenario in which Hugo Chávez would run Mexico through the pliable hands of López Obrador came with the encouragement of the International Republican Institute, a U.S. entity that specializes in using National Endowment for Democracy public funds to influence the outcome of elections throughout Latin America, including in recent years: Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela and now Mexico.

Using relatively small amounts of highly targeted funds, IRI’s funds ostensibly go for voter mobilization and other bland-sounding election projects, but in the end, allow Washington to buy the elections. It is likely that later investigative journalists will establish that this is precisely what happened in Mexico, because in every analogous situation elsewhere in the hemisphere, NED funds were slipped to the IRI to abort popular movements like that of López Obrador. In fact, the IRI and the Republican Party have had a long relationship with PAN that goes back at least to Calderón’s father. Republican party funds were given to PAN during its early days, with which workshops were organized and airline tickets were dispersed. At the same time, Washington office spaces and services were provided to PAN on an informal basis to visiting dignitaries. In a sense, with the critical issue of whether Mexico would join with the Banana Republics of Central America in preventing Venezuela from being awarded Argentina’s seat on the UN Security Council, Washington apparently decided that too much was at stake to leave things to chance. Beltway policy makers undoubtedly decided to give a little help to their panista colleague, hoping that he would remember this assistance at the time that the UN Security Council vote was being taken.

Defending Democracy

The PRD’s decision to protest the official results of the July 2 election through legally defined channels is nothing less than a test of the strength of Mexican democracy. It is no easy task that now confronts the TEPJF, as it must sort through hard evidence and heated rhetoric to make a decision which it will undoubtedly be forced to justify to either the PAN or the PRD, according to the circumstances. Dealing with the uncertainty that will undoubtedly dominate Mexico until that ruling is announced is a formidable task, and one which has been complicated by the IFE’s incessant self-promotion. In the weeks to come, all actors, including the media, must behave in a responsible manner. At this point, the only certainty about the Mexican presidential election of 2006 is that it is far from over.

*************
This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Fellow Michael Lettieri

Mexico: Recount and Move On

2006-07-15T23:43:00.000-07:00

From the Los Angeles Times

The best way to neutralize presidential loser Lopez Obrador is to give in to his vote-count demand.
By Denise Dresser

DENISE DRESSER is a columnist at the Mexican newspaper Reforma and a professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico.

July 13, 2006

TODAY, MEXICO is a house divided, a deeply polarized place where some believe that Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party won the election and others insist that he stole it.

Ten days after the election that split the country in two, the word "fraud" has become an integral part of a bitter national debate. The challenger, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is raising sharp questions about the outcome of the vote, and if he doesn't get answers, it is increasingly clear that he will make it hard for Calderon to govern. In a country where deep doubts about the cleanliness of the electoral process have resurfaced, both sides now need to dispel them.

Lopez Obrador, of course, has every right to legally question the results of a close election, just as the country has every right to demand that he respect its results. A vote-by-vote recount would leave him no recourse but to do so.

Mexico needs to review the votes in order to move beyond the paranoid style of its current politics — especially now that Lopez Obrador seems intent on destroying the country with the hope of governing it someday. Instead of keeping a cool head, he is butting it against everything he can: President Vicente Fox, the Federal Electoral Institute, the media, international observers and all those who believe that although irregularities might have occurred, massive fraud did not.

Once again he has resorted to the "all or nothing" approach that has become his trademark. He is confronting his opponents, encouraging conflict; he wants the presidency or else he vows to unleash civil unrest.

Paradoxically, the only way to rein him in would be precisely through the recount he has been pushing for. The best mechanism to neutralize Lopez Obrador and his followers would be to give in to their demands. To call their bluff. To smoke them out. To push the Federal Electoral Tribunal to order a recount, as it is legally allowed to do. To insist that Lopez Obrador accept whatever the electoral authority decides.

Total transparency might be the only way to deal with Lopez Obrador's aggressive political posturing and the social discontent it has fueled. This may be the last chance Mexico has to force him to play by the rules instead of challenging them at every turn.

The partial or total review of votes cast shouldn't be viewed as a concession to Lopez Obrador but as a way of taming him. The objective of a recount shouldn't be to question the majority's will but to clarify its intent. As the opening of 67 electoral packages in District 29 of Mexico City during the official count revealed, human error does indeed happen. In 62 out of the 67 that were opened (out of a total of 450 packages), the tallies on the outside didn't match the votes inside. It would take only one mistake in every 400 votes for the official results of the election to change. They could still do so, or perhaps not, but both people who worship Lopez Obrador and those who loathe him need to know for sure. Otherwise, uncertainty will prevail, and Mexico's warring factions will take advantage of it.

Yet many members of Mexico's political and economic establishment don't understand this. They believe that by presenting this election as a done deal, they are standing on principle and weakening Lopez Obrador, who they believe is no more than a demagogue. But, in fact, they are empowering him. Their resistance to a recount is feeding the growing perception that massive fraud may have taken place, even though it probably didn't. People are marching and mobilizing because the country's elites keep providing them reasons to do so.

Every time Fox argues that those who voted for Lopez Obrador are "renegades," he creates more of them. Every time Calderon starts speaking about his future cabinet and acting as if he won, he only angers those who question whether he really did. And soon they will be pouring into the streets of Mexico City, ready to prove that Lopez Obrador wasn't dangerous until his enemies forced him to act that way.

In order to move beyond this tense stalemate, Calderon would have to accept some form of recount, and Lopez Obrador would have to promise to unequivocally abide by its results. The Federal Electoral Tribunal has until Sept. 6 to give a final verdict and declare a president-elect. As an institution created to deal with post-electoral conflicts, the tribunal must show that it can use a vote-by-vote recount to defuse them.

Only then will winners and losers be able to put the country back together again, instead of threatening to tear it apart.

SAN FRANCISCO Labour Congress support: Count each Vote

2006-07-11T11:25:00.000-07:00

Recount in Mexican Election, 2006

Whereas, the San Francisco Labor Council has provided concrete assistance to insure the participation of Sisters and Brothers of Mexican Nationality in the Mexican Presidential Election 2006, and

Whereas, these sisters and brothers traveled over 1000 miles to secure their voting rights in said elections,

Whereas, complaints of election irregularities including, but not limited to, uncounted ballots and corporate media manipulation have been submitted and raised in said election, and

Whereas, the issue of election irregularities and the exclusion of the disenfranchised is an increasing component of many elections here and abroad, and

Whereas, the progressive Mexican Union Movement, the UNTS, has supported the call for a recount and has asked for support to all other labor organizations Nationally and Internationally

Therefore be it resolved, the San Francisco Labor Council supports the demand of a recount in the Mexican Presidential Election 06 vote by vote (voto por voto).

Be it further resolved this resolution shall be forwarded to the California Federation of Labor and all other affiliated bodies for their consideration and adoption.

Submitted by SF/LCLAA

Passed Unanimously at the Executive Committee and Delegates Meeting of the San Francisco Labor Council - July 10, 2006.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE VOLATILE POLITICAL SITUATION IN MEXICO:
Premature congratulations, conniving conversations...

The recent outrageous and shameful events in the already volatile political situation in Mexico, have been now crowned by the government's authorization of Luis Carlos Ugalde (IFE) published last July 7 by the Diario Oficial de la Federacion (Federation Official Journal) to pronounce Mr. Calderon Hinojosa as the winner of the Presidential race, so Mr. Ugalde's announcement last Sunday is not considered illegal, only ratify the need of a vote recount and a thorough scrutiny of the entire process by TRIFE (Federal Electoral Tribunal), demanded by millions of Mexican citizens who have clearly expressed their rejection of the suspicious handling of the election by IFE, which long before July 2, had shown its partiality in favor of right-wing candidate Felipe Calderon and his dirty war against left-wing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The disregard and disdain these politicians show for the intelligence of citizens, in their renewed attempts to con us with such authorization to Mr. Ugalde, not only tramples on our rights but also violates Constitutional Article 105 which establishes: "Federal and local electoral laws shall be promulgated and published at least 90 days prior to the start of the electoral process where they are to be applied, and therefore, no fundamental legal amendments shall be made outside such time period" (Addendum by official decree published by the Federal Official Journal on August 22, 1996).

Of course, this would not be the first time these rapacious, corrupt and unethical politicians step on our maximum law, the Mexican Constitution. And if all these criminal actions were not sufficiently repugnant to outrage millions of citizens, the situation gets even worse with the barefaced conversations held by Pedro Cerisola, Secretary of Communications and Transportation, Elba Esther Gordillo (the disreputed former leader of the SNTE - National Education Workers Union) with the Governor of the State of Tamaulipas, Eugenio Hernandez Flores, which once again exhibit the profound decay prevailing in a historically corrupt political system that does not hesitate in incurring in the most flagrant maneuvers to cling to power so they continue enjoying the same privileges and prebends in detriment of the poor and disenfranchised social sectors in Mexico.

Finally and just as a "big cherry" on a cake already adorned with ingredients of the most refined corruption, we have the sadly shameless role of the TV duo-polio: Televisa and TV Azteca, in their constant attempts to manipulate public opinion in favor of Mr. Calderon who will, of course, write his name in Mexican history as one of the most pathetic, twisted, rapacious and mediocre presidential candidates in the annals of Mexican politics.

All the citizens who feel deeply concerned about the future of our country, so victimized by al these obscure individuals, would be incurring in a grievous omission of our civic duty if we would surrender to the manipulation of all this apparatus and would thereby allow the consummation of this shameless electoral fraud.

Patricia Barba Avila

Mexico and Florida have more in common than heat

2006-07-09T09:09:00.000-07:00

There is evidence that left-leaning voters have been scrubbed from key electoral lists in Latin America

Greg Palast
Saturday July 8, 2006
The Guardian

There's something rotten in Mexico. And it smells like Florida. The ruling party, the Washington-friendly National Action Party (Pan), proclaimed yesterday their victory in the presidential race, albeit tortilla thin, was Mexico's first "clean" election. But that requires we close our eyes to some very dodgy doings in the vote count that are far too reminiscent of the games played in Florida in 2000 by the Bush family. And indeed, evidence suggests that Team Bush had a hand in what may be another presidential election heist.
Just before the 2000 balloting in Florida, I reported in the Guardian that its governor, Jeb Bush, had ordered the removal of tens of thousands of black citizens from the state's voter rolls. He called them "felons", but our investigation discovered their only crime was Voting While Black. And that little scrub of the voter rolls gave the White House to his brother George.
Jeb's winning scrub list was the creation of a private firm, ChoicePoint of Alpharetta, Georgia. Now, it seems, ChoicePoint is back in the voter list business - in Mexico - at the direction of the Bush government. Months ago, I got my hands on a copy of a memo from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, marked "secret", regarding a contract for "intelligence collection of foreign counter-terrorism investigations".
Given that the memo was dated September 17 2001, a week after the attack on the World Trade Centre, hunting for terrorists seemed like a heck of a good idea. But oddly, while all 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, the contract was for obtaining the voter files of Venezuela, Brazil ... and Mexico.
What those Latin American countries have in common, besides a lack of terrorists, is either a left-leaning president or a left candidate for president ahead in the opinion polls, leaders of the floodtide of Bush-hostile Latin leaders. It seems that the Bush government feared the leftist surge was up against the US's southern border.
As we found in Florida in 2000, my investigations team on the ground in Mexico City this week found voters in poor neighbourhoods, the left's turf, complaining that their names were "disappeared" from the voter rolls. ChoicePoint can't know what use the Bush crew makes of its lists. But erased registrations require us to ask, before this vote is certified, was there a purge as there was in Florida?
Notably, ruling party operatives carried registration lists normally in the hands of elections officials only. (In Venezuela in 2004, during the special election to recall President Hugo Chavez, I saw his opponents consulting laptops with voter lists. Were these the purloined FBI files? The Chavez government suspects so but, victorious, won't press the case.)
There's more that the Mexico vote has in common with Florida besides the heat. The ruling party's hand-picked electoral commission counted a mere 402,000 votes more for their candidate, Felipe Calderón, over challenger Andrés Manuel López Obrador. That's noteworthy in light of the surprise showing of candidate Señor Blank-o (the 827,000 ballots supposedly left "blank").
We've seen Mr Blank-o do well before - in Florida in 2000 when Florida's secretary of state (who was also co-chair of the Bush campaign) announced that 179,000 ballots showed no vote for the president. The machines couldn't read these ballots with "hanging chads" and other technical problems. Humans can read these ballots with ease, but the hand-count was blocked by Bush's conflicted official.
And so it is in Mexico. The Calderón "victory" is based on a gross addition of tabulation sheets. His party, the Pan, and its election officials are refusing López Obrador's call for a hand recount of each ballot which would be sure to fill in those blanks.
Blank ballots are rarely random. In Florida in 2000, 88% of the supposedly blank ballots came from African-American voting districts - that is, they were cast by Democratic voters. In Mexico, the supposed empty or unreadable ballots come from the poorer districts where the challenger's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PDR) is strongest.
There's an echo of the US non-count in the south-of-the-border tally. It's called "negative drop-off". In a surprising number of districts in Mexico, the federal electoral commission logged lots of negative drop-off: more votes for lower offices than for president. Did López Obrador supporters, en masse, forget to punch in their choice?
There are signs of Washington's meddling in its neighbour's election. The International Republican Institute, an arm of Bush's party apparatus funded by the US government, admits to providing tactical training for Pan. Did Pan also make use of the purloined citizen files? (US contractor ChoicePoint, its Mexican agents facing arrest for taking the data, denied wrongdoing and vowed to destroy its copies of the lists. But what of Mr Bush's copy?)
Mexico's Bush-backed ruling party claims it has conducted Mexico's first truly honest election, though it refuses to re-count the ballots or explain the purge of voters. Has the Pan and its ally in Washington served democracy in this election, or merely Florida con salsa?
· Greg Palast is the author of Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf? China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08 and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War
gregpalast.com

From Los Angeles Times

2006-07-09T09:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexrally9jul09,0,1028341.story?coll=la-home-headlines

From the Los Angeles Times
Mexico's Runner-Up Remains Unbowed
By Richard Boudreaux
Times Staff Writer

July 9, 2006

MEXICO CITY — About a quarter of a million people chanting "Fraud! Fraud!" jammed Mexico City's central square Saturday to back leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's bid to overturn his narrow electoral defeat with court appeals and mass marches.

Lopez Obrador told the rowdy but peaceful crowd that he would present allegations of fraudulent vote tallies to the Federal Electoral Tribunal before tonight's deadline and demand a recount. He called for nationwide marches that would converge on Mexico City for another rally July 16 as the seven-judge panel weighed his appeal.

"There is convincing evidence that they took votes away from us," Lopez Obrador said. "We are certain that we won on July 2, and we are going to defend our victory."

Many in the crowd said they were ready for a fight if Lopez Obrador did not prevail. "To the death!" shouted Maria Irene Ramirez, a 53-year-old retired railroad worker from Hidalgo state.

Saturday's huge gathering, summoned on two days' notice, marks a critical point in what has been a peaceful challenge to the official result of the election, which gave governing-party candidate Felipe Calderon a winning margin of 244,000 votes out of 41 million cast.

Lopez Obrador, a fiery populist, has made a career of organizing mass demonstrations, several of which turned violent in the 1990s. That legacy and the tone of his statements last week have fed concern that the former Mexico City mayor could destabilize the country, undermining democratic institutions just six years after Mexico's emergence from decades of one-party rule.

But Saturday, he stopped short of calling for civil disobedience, eliciting groans from demonstrators when he asked them not to block highways.

"This is a peaceful movement, and we are never going to allow ourselves to be provoked by our adversaries," he said. "We have enough strength to validate our democracy using only peaceful demonstrations."

The crowd filled the Zocalo, the vast downtown square, and spilled into surrounding streets.

Mexico City police, subordinate to a government run by Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party, estimated the crowd at 280,000 people. Notimex, the semiofficial news agency of the conservative-led federal government, said slightly more than 200,000 people were there.

The challenger's party, known as the PRD, bused in loyalists from around the country. Organizers said they came from 18 states, some as far as Chiapas, on Mexico's southern border, and Southern Baja California.

They turned the Zocalo into a sea of yellow party flags and banners with slogans such as "No solution means revolution." They blew noisemakers, set off fireworks and sang the national anthem. One group carried a giant abacus, illustrating the demand, chanted incessantly by the crowd, for a recount — "vote by vote, poll by poll."

Carmen Garcia, 38, a Puebla homemaker, was defiant.

"We're not going to let them take it away from him," she said. "We're going to fight with everything against all who don't want him in power. He will be our next president, whether they like it or not."

Most political analysts say Lopez Obrador's campaign faces an uphill battle.

The European Union, which monitored the vote, has said it found no evidence of major fraud or irregularity in the preliminary count July 2 or in the official count that ended Thursday.

Calderon, the candidate of President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, said Friday that he was not worried about a legal challenge to the election because irregularities found in the initial count were minor. He said he opposed a full recount.

Lopez Obrador was hedging his bets. Meeting with foreign journalists Saturday before the rally, he said his party planned to file a separate appeal to the Supreme Court later alleging that the entire election was unfair.

Top aides to Lopez Obrador called Friday for a recount of nearly half of the votes cast.

Officially, Calderon cannot be declared president-elect until the electoral tribunal decides his case. It has until Sept. 6 to declare a winner.

Lopez Obrador ridiculed his rival for acting like a president-elect, and rebuffed Calderon's offer to join a unity Cabinet. He called Calderon "an employee" of Mexico's upper classes and said a victory by his opponent would be "morally impossible."

"It's illogical, therefore, that there could be any agreement with him," he told journalists.

Later, at the rally, the challenger spoke confidently and forcefully. Wearing a dark suit and yellow tie, he addressed the crowd from a raised platform after being introduced by a party leader as "the only one who deserves to be called president."

Anticipating the case to be filed in the Supreme Court, Lopez Obrador called the Federal Electoral Institute, which conducted and counted the vote, "a battering ram" for Calderon. He alleged that the ruling party candidate was allowed to defame him in TV ads, exceed the legal limit for campaign spending and tap government funds for the campaign.

And he denounced Fox, Mexico's first freely elected president, as "a traitor to democracy" for campaigning, in violation of the country's norms, on Calderon's behalf.

Lopez Obrador's speech was frequently interrupted by applause and chants of "You are not alone!"

The militancy of the crowd suggested that Lopez Obrador could sustain his movement at least until a ruling by the tribunal.

Last year, facing a legal challenge to keep Lopez Obrador off the presidential ballot, the PRD built a nationwide grass-roots network that mobilized for weeks of protest, culminating in a rally that filled the Zocalo in April 2005. The legal challenge failed, and the network evolved into a campaign organization that now serves as the engine of Lopez Obrador's protest movement.

The leftist leader proposed that his followers gather at 300 district vote-counting offices around the country Wednesday and begin marching to Mexico City. He urged everyone in the Zocalo on Saturday to bring 10 more people with them.

"Do you approve of this proposal?" he asked. The crowd roared in agreement.

Despite the potency of his protest movement, its long-term staying power is uncertain. Nor is it clear whether Lopez Obrador would continue to send his supporters into the streets if he lost his case in the tribunal.

Under questioning by foreign journalists, he said he was confident of prevailing in the tribunal, but declined eight times to say what he would do if he did not. Asked whether the tribunal was a fair and respectable body, he said, "That's what I wish, but it remains to be seen."

As for the risk that his protests will unsettle the country, he said it was the government that created an atmosphere of instability by having supported what he called an unfair election.

"If there is no democracy, there can be no stability," he said.

Political analysts said Lopez Obrador must walk a tightrope as he decides how far to push the protests.

If they turn violent, he could undermine the legitimacy of his party, which doubled its percentage of the national vote, enlarged its bloc in Congress and kept control of Mexico City. But if he concedes the election without a fight, he will risk losing support within his party. He is 52 and conceivably could run for president again.

"The PRD was born as a protest movement against electoral fraud, and he has to honor its culture of fighting to the end," said Juan E. Pardinas of the Center of Research for Development. "But if it wants to win a bigger share of the vote next time, the party has to move to the center."

FINANCIAL TIMES

2006-07-06T22:20:00.000-07:00

Delay revives memories of poll fraud
By Richard Lapper and Adam Thomson in Mexico City
Published: July 3 2006 18:41 | Last updated: July 3 2006 18:41, Financial Times
Financial markets on Monday began to celebrate what appeared to be a small but definite advantage for Felipe Calderón, the centre-right candidate in Mexico's presidential election. But the mood in Chapultepec market in central Mexico City was considerably less optimistic.
From behind a steaming pot filled with cuts of beef, Angelica Sánchez said she was deeply suspicious of the previous night's events when Mexico's electoral authorities unexpectedly postponed the official result until at least Wednesday.
On Sunday both Mr Calderón and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the leftwing candidate supported by Ms Sánchez, claimed victory even though the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) said the count was too close to call.
"They [IFE] said they would tell us by 11 o'clock on Sunday. It makes you think why," she said. "There is no doubt in my mind that López Obrador won."
Many López Obrador supporters, who are more likely to come from the poorest and most socially excluded areas of the country, agree.
Mexico, which for more than 70 consecutive years was dominated by the Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI), has a history of electoral fraud. And as recently as 1988, Mr López Obrador's party was denied victory after official computers mysteriously crashed.
On Sunday night, those memories resurfaced when Mr López Obrador appeared to question the IFE's decision to postpone the result. Claiming that his own party's figures confirmed his victory, he said: "This result is irreversible . . . we have won."
Moments later in the city's main square, Mr López Obrador told thousands of cheering supporters: "I deeply regret that the IFE has not given the result . . . It has to respect our triumph."
On Monday morning, the IFE's provisional figures suggested the result was tipping in favour of the business-friendly Mr Calderón who, like his leftwing rival, had been quick to proclaim victory.
With about 95 per cent of the vote counted, Mr Calderón led by about 400,000 votes or about 1 per cent of the votes cast. That is still too small to make his victory a certainty, and the IFE insists it will not declare a winner until a full manual count is completed - probably late this week.
On Monday morning, Mr López Obrador stopped short of calling for mass protests. But he left open the possibility of challenging any decision against him in the courts. "If we have any proof that shows the contrary [of the IFE's decision] we will make it count," he said.
On the streets of Mexico City, many people lamented the candidates' reactions, insisting they should have respected the IFE's decision to wait, and said their proclamations of victory could spell trouble ahead.
Brenda Gutierrez, a 22-year-old hotel employee in the upmarket Polanco district, said: "If Calderón wins, López Obrador's supporters are going to react strongly. The candidates should have waited."
Patricia Avila, who sells make-up on an improvised street stall in central Mexico City, agreed. "There are a lot of people with López Obrador and they are going be very upset if their candidate loses."
But in spite of many Mexicans' concerns about possible strikes and instability, investors were more upbeat about the outcome, which they now expect to tip clearly in Mr Calderón's favour, and played down any threats of instability.
Damian Fraser, head of Latin American strategy at UBS Investment in Mexico City, did not rule out the possibility that Mr López Obrador would challenge any decision against him in Mexico's courts. But he also suggested he would think twice before going further.
"He risks jeopardising much of the support he has built up over the years. He has achieved a lot without winning and his party will not want to throw that away. I think he will stop short of trying to provoke outright governability."
Indeed, according to preliminary results, Mr López Obrador's PRD party stands significantly to increase its presence in Congress. IFE figures suggest that it will win about 170 seats in the lower house compared with about 110 at present.
But the clearest winner looks set to be the ruling PAN, which stands to gain as many as 205 seats, 55 more than it currently controls. By contrast, the PRI, which until now has dominated both houses, could lose more than 100 seats.
In spite of Mr Fraser's optimism, however, some Mexicans remained sceptical about the immediate future. With cleaver in hand, Abel Vazquez, a chef at a local taco stand, said the whole episode on Sunday was regrettable. "Whoever wins now is not going to have the confidence of the population," he said.

Mature democracy or more fraud? Mexicans divided

2006-07-06T21:44:00.000-07:00

By Catherine Bremer
Reuters

Monday, July 03, 2006

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A cliffhanger presidential vote and rival claims of victory have split Mexicans into two camps: those who believe in their young democracy and others who fear the bad old days of fraud are not yet gone.
As the conservative ruling party's Felipe Calderon declared himself president-elect on Monday and his leftist rival, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, huddled with advisors to decide how to challenge the result, their supporters took very different views on the state of democracy.
Some saw the election as another success, showing Mexico had not only embraced free and fair elections but was able to keep calm even when the result was extremely close.
Others who support Lopez Obrador, an anti-poverty crusader, said the election stank of the dirty tricks that were so common in Mexico during most of the 20th century.
"For me, this is fraud. It's not fair," 57-year-old Francesca Contreras said angrily as she wiped clean the counter of her stall in a sprawling Mexico City food market.
"I believe Lopez Obrador won. Entire neighborhoods voted for him ... They are plotting something and they are mocking the people. I hope people rise up, even take up arms, against this."
Although the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) has ordered a recount for Wednesday, official returns from 97.7 percent of polling stations gave National Action Party candidate Calderon a lead of 1 percentage point, or nearly 400,000 votes, over Lopez Obrador.
Both had claimed victory on Sunday night after an election that opinion polls predicted would be nailbitingly close.
PRESSURE
Wall Street and political analysts have said they fear a narrow Calderon victory could spark street protests by Lopez Obrador supporters, who chanted victory on Sunday and warned they would not accept foul play.
But some Mexicans were confident democratic institutions can handle the pressure.
"It's great. It was a clean election. They are fighting over who won. This shows we are learning democracy," said Juan Ayuba, 58, selling pickles and glazed fruit at the market.
"It's not like before, when there was a lot of manipulation of the elections. IFE will have the final word."
The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled for 71 years until it was finally toppled in 2000, trailed in a distant third place in Sunday's vote.
It was a far cry from the days when PRI presidents handpicked their successors, local party chiefs would coerce the poor to vote for the party and operatives simply stole elections if they faced a real challenge.
Mexico has been scrabbling slowly toward democracy ever since the 1988 election was famously rigged, with the PRI government claiming its computers crashed just as leftist Cuauhtemoc Cardenas was headed for victory.
When the computerized vote count was restarted, PRI candidate Carlos Salinas was winning.
"For 71 years we were under an anarchy and now we are excited because we see things have changed," said butcher Fernando Salcedo of the changed political map.
Many of Mexico's poor remain disillusioned however.
"Ah, so it went into penalties," joked a rubbish sweeper at the market, who hadn't voted or followed the result. "Anyway, why vote? They're all the same, they all rob us."

MEXICAN DEMOCRACY: WHAT A SHORT STORY!

2006-07-06T18:27:00.000-07:00

During the 2000 Mexican elections, when Vicente Fox was running for the presidency, the Alianza Civica and other groups which monitored the elections came to realize that many types of electoral fraud which had been used were too subtle to be detectable at the polling stations.

In many areas, particularly in south-eastern Mexico, there emerged different patterns of repression and intimidation techniques used by army patrols, police and paramilitary organizations which made it next to impossible to guarantee any human rights. This year, a similar pattern emerged in Atenco and Oaxaca.

Other events which were of significance and threaten the democratic process were: irregularities of campaign finances, unequal distribution of information, unequal access to media, and the use of state resources to boost the campaign of the government's candidate.

Also, last year the Mexican Congress used seriously shady criminal charges to impeach and ban the leading candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, from running in this year's presidential election. That was seen as the President's form of using underhanded tactics to keep its grip on power. (Lopez Obrador was accused of disregarding a court order to stop the construction of a short access road leading to a hospital.) More than a million people gathered in the main square of the capital city, and around the world Mexicans marched peacefully and called for a democratic self-rule. The impeachment decision was then overruled.

Also, worth noting was that at a very late time, the Federal Election Institute, (IFE) which regulates the electoral process, had to ban some of the television spots as they were too false to be on the air and others simply too rude. Regretfully, it is under these conditions that the Mexican elections took place. A systematic and very aggressive ad campaign against Mr. Lopez Obrador had been all over the media. Also the IFE had to intervene and ask Vicente Fox to discontinue taking sides in the elections (an illegal action for the President). Recently, after months of continuous aggression, the Institute voted to cancel ads and TV spots which call Mr. López Obrador, "a danger for Mexico". The institute finally realized that these ads constituted defamation and slander.

IFE also fined the National Action Party $14,000 for its part in encouraging José María Aznar, Spain's former prime minister, to lend his full support for the conservative candidate, Mr. Calderón.

No one has been criticized more than Mr. Fox, who has used his office and official events to campaign for Mr. Calderón and to attack Mr. López Obrador. The president has spent public money of hundreds of millions on service ads touting what he deems successful social service programs, the same ones Mr. Calderón has promised to keep. Thousands of e-mails had been sent from federal governmental computers with false information and data aiming to destroy the image of Lopez Obrador.

On July 2nd, the election day, during what seemed to be a clear and peaceful process, a series of awkward events started happening. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=15archive/&entry_id=6803

In the counting of the ballots many irregularities are being found.

López Obrador spoke to the press and called for a total recount. Felipe Calderon the Action Party candidate has rejected his opponent's demand that already sealed ballot boxes be opened and all the votes recounted, "vote by vote."

Because of those actions it is clear that this July 2nd, Mexicans did not have the chance to democratically elect a president, less even to have a chance to endorse democracy.

We, a group of Mexican residents and refugees living in Canada, want a Mexican President voted by majority and not the result of fraudulent actions.

We are asking the foreign governments to observe and analyze the irregularities in this process and help the Mexicans to their right of a real democracy.

MECAPASO

MEXICAN CANADIANS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE

http://mecapaso.tripod.com/
mecapaso@hotmail.com

Letter to members of the parliament

2006-07-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

Vancouver, Canada
July 04, 2006

H. Libby Davis, MP for Vancouver East
2412 Main Street
Vancouver, BC V5T 3E2

Dear Libby Davis,

Re: MEXICAN ELECTIONS

My name is Eva Nancy Trigueros , I am Mexican Canadian, member of MECAPASO (Mexican-Canadian for Social Participation) living in Vancouver. As you may know, Mexico had this past July 02, presidential elections in which no candidate has been yet declare as a winner because of an alleged “tied” result.

I am very concern for the course of event due to the overwhelming information pointing to an electoral fraud with severe consequences to the people in Mexico. This letter will come short to detail one by one hundred of inconsistencies allowed by the Federal Electoral Institute this past Sunday election. But I will mention some of the most relevant:

Two general representatives for the PRD in the elections were killed in the state of Guerrero one day previous to the elections. In addition to this horrendous crime this state suffered in the past days violent crimes, creating opportunistically by elections times, an environment of fear so that people were afraid to cast their votes. This is a state were many votes for the PRD were expected.

Despite the fact that the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) is presumed neutral, there had been several investigations revealing the arrangements done by PRI and PAN to select the members of this supposedly non-partisan institute. The political magazine “Proceso” one of the most prestigious newspapers had done extensive coverage to denounce the secret arrangements between these two parties and the links of Carlos Ugalde, president of this Institute with the PAN candidate to a personal level. Therefore, this institute is not “neutral’ as it presumes, because from its origins there isn’t a guarantee of an impartial balance in this elections.
(http://www.proceso.com.mx/revistaint.html?arv=138645&sec=2)

The Electoral Institute implemented a process of outside polling called PREP. This system was put in place to provide information in advance about the electoral results. However, this process is now widely denounced in Mexico because it was openly manipulated. To mention one example among many others, there are three million votes that are “missing”. The Federal Institute had accepted that those votes are present but that they are “inconsistent” and therefore they did not took that into consideration for their results in which Calderon is mentioned to be ahead for little over four hundred thousand votes
(http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2006/07/04/005n1pol.php).

We Mexicans are starting to take actions into our hands. Thousands of people in Mexico had launched a citizen network to denounce this fraud against the will of the majority of the people. Hundreds of people organized and started taken pictures of the electoral results outside de polling posts and comparing those numbers to the “officials’ given by the Federal Electoral Institute. The results surprisingly are showing a great number of discrepancies, of course in the detriment of the PRD Candidate Mr. Obrador. There a “cuts’ in numbers of votes cast in favor of the PRD, some of them small 10, 20 , 30 others 100 or more but if you have the same pattern around the country that means a huge amount of votes not considered in favor of Mr. Obrador. This we know, because people are sending photos of the results posted in their area and comparing to the information that was available through the IFE. Recently this Institute had disabled the entrance of the public to that information.

In addition to this information , I also attached to this letter an “open letter” send by our organizations in addition to several organizations and individuals in United States, Canada and Europe to president Fox requesting to take his hands of the electoral process. I also attached the report made by “global exchange’ accredited international observers in regards to the pre-electoral report of the Mexican elections.

That is why we respectfully request you as our federal representative and members of the Canadian parliament to be observant of this electoral process in Mexico. Mexico is an important partner of Canada and United States, this government has signed several international agreements in which they assured to respect the fundamental political rights. Canada should be vigilant that those agreements are respected, and that a spurious government should not be recognized if they pass over the will and political rights of millions of Mexicans.

Thank you in advance, may you need more information, please feel free to contact me at your convenience.

Sincerely

Eva Nancy Trigueros Chavez
5240 Killarney St.
Vancouver, Canada
Ph. 778-327-9748
www.mexicoescucha.blogspot.com
www.mexicolisten.blogspot.com
trabajadoresinternacionales@gmail.com

Grand theft Mexico

2006-07-04T00:14:00.000-07:00

Greg Palast

July 3, 2006 05:05 PM

As in Florida in 2000, and as in Ohio in 2004, the exit polls show the voters voted for the progressive candidate. The race is "officially" too close to call. But they will call it - after they steal it.

Reuters reports that, as of 8pm eastern time, as voting concluded in Mexico, exit polls showed Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the "leftwing" party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) leading in exit polls over Felipe Calderón of the ruling conservative National Action party (PAN).

We've said again and again: exit polls tell us how voters say they voted, but the voters can't tell pollsters whether their vote will be counted. In Mexico, counting the vote is an art, not a science - and Calderón's ruling crew is very artful indeed. The PAN-controlled official electoral commission, not surprisingly, has announced that the presidential tally is too close to call.

Calderón's election is openly supported by the Bush administration.

On the ground in Mexico city, our news team reports accusations from inside the Obrador campaign that operatives of the PAN had access to voter files that are supposed to be the sole property of the nation's electoral commission. We are not surprised.

This past Friday, we reported that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation had obtained Mexico's voter files under a secret "counter-terrorism" contract with the database company ChoicePoint of Alpharetta, Georgia .

The FBI's contractor states that following the arrest of ChoicePoint agents by the Mexican government, the company returned or destroyed its files. The firm claims not to have known that collecting this information violated Mexican law. Such files can be useful in challenging a voter's right to cast a ballot or in preventing that vote from counting.

It is, of course, impossible to know whether the FBI destroyed its own copy of the files of Mexico's voter rolls obtained by ChoicePoint or whether these were then used to illegally assist the Calderon candidacy. But we can see the results: as in the US, first in Florida, then in Ohio, the exit polls are at odds with "official" polls.

In November 2004, the US Republican Senator Richard Lugar, in Kiev, cited the divergence of exit polls and official polls as solid evidence of "blatant fraud" in the vote count in Ukraine. As a result, the Bush administration refused to recognise the Ukraine government's official vote tally - proving once again that republicans are incapable of irony.

The foreign mainstream press has already announced, despite the polling discrepancies, that Mexico's elections were fair and clean, which would be a first for that country where López Obrador's party has seen its candidates defeated by "blatant fraud" before. The change this time is that the fraud is simply less blatant.

Stealing Mexico

2006-07-01T13:37:00.000-07:00

By Greg Palast
GregPalast.com

Friday 30 June 2006

Bush team helps ruling party "Floridize" Mexican presidential election.
George Bush's operatives have plans to jigger with the upcoming elections. I'm not talking about the November '06 vote in the USA (though they have plans for that, too). I'm talking about the election this Sunday in Mexico for their Presidency.

It begins with an FBI document marked, "Counterterrorism" and "Foreign Intelligence Collection" and "Secret." Date: "9/17/2001," six days after the attack on the World Trade towers. It's nice to know the feds got right on the ball, if a little late.

What does this have to do with jiggering Mexico's election? Hold that thought.

This document is what's called a "guidance" memo for using a private contractor to provide databases on dangerous foreigners. Good idea. We know the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf Emirates. So you'd think the "Intelligence Collection" would be aimed at getting info on the guys in the Gulf.

No so. When we received the document, we obtained as well its classified appendix. The target nations for "foreign counterterrorism investigation" were nowhere near the Persian Gulf. Every one was in Latin America - Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico and a handful of others.

Latin America?! Was there a terror cell about to cross into San Diego with exploding enchiladas?

All the target nations had one thing in common besides a lack of terrorists: each had a left-leaning presidential candidate or a left-leaning president in office. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez, bete noir of the Bush Administration, was facing a recall vote. In Mexico, the anti-Bush Mayor of Mexico City, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was (and is) leading the race for the Presidency.

Most provocative is the contractor to whom this no-bid contract was handed: ChoicePoint Inc. of Alpharetta, Georgia. ChoicePoint is the database company that created a list for Governor Jeb Bush of Florida of voters to scrub from voter rolls before the 2000 election. ChoicePoint's list (94,000 names in all) contained few felons. Most of those on the list were guilty of no crime except Voting While Black. The disenfranchisement of these voters cost Al Gore the presidency.

Having chosen our President for us, our President's men chose ChoicePoint for this sweet War on Terror database gathering. The use of the Venezuela's and Mexico's voter registry files to fight terror is not visible - but the use of the lists to manipulate elections is as obvious as the make-up on Katherine Harris' cheeks.

In Venezuela, leading up to the August 2004 vote on whether to re-call President Chavez, I saw his opposition pouring over the voter rolls in laptops, claiming the right to challenge voters as Jeb's crew did to voters in Florida. It turns out this operation was partly funded by the International Republican Institute of Washington, an arm of the GOP. Where did they get the voter info from?

In that case, access to Venezuela's voter rolls didn't help the Republican-assisted drive against Chavez, who won by a crushing plurality.

In Mexico this Sunday, we can expect to see the same: challenges of Obrador voters in a race, the polls say, is too close to call. Not that Mexico's rulers need lessons from the Bush Administration on how to mess with elections.

In 1988, the candidate for Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PDR), who opinion polls showed as a certain winner, somehow came up short against the incumbent party of the ruling elite. Some of the electoral tricks were far from subtle. In the state of Guerrero, the PDR was leading on official tally sheets by 359,369. Oddly, the official final count was 309,202 for the ruling party, only 182,874 for the PDR. Challenging the vote would have been dangerous. Two top officials of Obrador's party were assassinated during the campaign.

Crucial to the surprise victory of the ruling party was the introduction of computer voting machines and the centralization of voter databases. Observer Andrew Reding of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs reported that ruling party operatives had special access codes denied the opposition.

Whether the US "War on Terror" lists will find a use in Sunday's election, we cannot know. But the use of American government resources to interfere in south-of-the-border campaigns is an open secret. The GOP's International Republican Institute has run training sessions for the PAN youth wing, funded by US taxpayers through the "National Endowment for Democracy."

Foreign - that is, American - interference in political campaigns is a crime. That didn't stop Team Bush. However, when the theft of its citizen files was discovered, Argentina threatened to arrest ChoicePoint contractors until the company returned the tapes - and Mexico's attorney general did in fact arrest the ChoicePoint data thieves to avoid his party from looking too much the stooge of its Washington patron. Whether George Bush gave back his copy, no one will say.

Wholesale theft is expected on Sunday in forms both subtle and brutal. How the US' purloined "counterterrorism" lists will be used, we don't know. We are certain however, that the Administration did not siphon off these Latin voter files to fight a War on Terror. It appears, rather, part of the Bush Administration's and GOP's hemispheric War on Democracy - along a battle line which runs from Florida to Ohio to Juarez.

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For as-it-happens reporting on the Mexican election, check www.GregPalast.com for dispatches from our team investigator Special Correspondent Matt Pascarella with video journalist Rick Rowley in Mexico City.
Special thanks to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Washington. DC, which received and passed on to our team the FBI ChoicePoint files and other foreign intelligence documentation.

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and Other Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Class War.

Challenges for a Postelection Mexico

2006-06-26T16:34:00.000-07:00

Issues for U.S. Policy

Author: Pamela K. Starr
Council on Foreign Relations Press
June 2006

POSSIBLE MEXICAN FOREIGN POLICIES Of the three leading candidates for the presidency, PAN candidate Felipe Calderón is the least likely to make marked changes to Mexico’s current foreign policy approach. He would continue to prioritize national interests over policy principles, promote international trade, and participate actively in international institutions such as the UN Security Council. The difference Calderón would bring to foreign policy is one of tone. Unlike his predecessor, Calderón promises a Zedillo-like preference for close cooperation with the United States, but without a warm public embrace, and he is likely to renew Mexico’s courtship of its cultural cousins in Latin America. The PRI’s Roberto Madrazo calls for a return to Mexico’s historically nationalist and principled approach to foreign policy coupled with careful attention to the country’s fundamentally important relationship with the United States. Like Calderón, he would reprioritize Latin America in Mexican foreign policy, but would go further than Calderón and include improved ties with Cuba. A PRI administration would take Mexico out of the UN Security Council (but would otherwise continue Mexico’s active participation in international institutions), demand a revision of NAFTA’s agricultural chapter to prevent free trade in beans and corn, which is scheduled to begin on January 1, 2008, and end Mexico’s support for a free trade area of the Americas. His foreign policy promises to be a return to tradition, albeit adjusted to the realities of a new international context. The PRD’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador has shown little interest in foreign affairs. What drives him as a politician is a lifelong desire to improve the lot of Mexico’s poor. Since the solutions to this problem typically lie in the domestic realm, foreign policy would take a low profile. His foreign policy would be based on the principles of self-determination, nonintervention, and the peaceful resolution of disputes, but without aggressively promoting these principles. Mexico would withdraw from the UN Security Council and reduce its overall profile in international organizations. López Obrador is also very unlikely to embrace Hugo Chávez. To the contrary, he is the only Mexican presidential candidate in memory from the left who has not employed anti-American rhetoric. He is likely to normalize relations with Venezuela and Cuba in order to placate the supporters of Chávez and Castro within his party. But given the fundamental
17
importance of good relations with the United States to his domestic economic project, López Obrador will do little more. There is an exception to low-profile foreign policy, however: NAFTA. López Obrador has no interest in pulling Mexico out of NAFTA, but he does believe the treaty could be refined to better serve Mexican interests. He proposes expanding NAFTA to include a chapter on development assistance and promises to prevent the scheduled opening of the North American corn and bean market in 2008, due to the social and economic disruptions that it would cause in many rural communities. He would like to reopen discussions on trade in sugar, citrus, and brooms, and on land transport, and he is apt to use safeguards when required to protect Mexican national production. Although López Obrador is not a great fan of free trade treaties, he is unlikely to pull Mexico out of its existing trade agreements with the European Union, Japan, Chile, and other countries. But a López Obrador presidency is not likely to continue its predecessors’ support for a Free Trade Area for the Americas. Finally, López Obrador’s nationalism, his sensitivity to criticism, and his tendency to speak his mind freely will make him a prickly partner who is susceptible to perceived slights by the United States or its representatives, a historically common source of tension in the bilateral relationship

Washington Post Article

2006-06-24T19:13:00.000-07:00

Using FDR as Model, Presidential Hopeful Out to Build New Deal for Mexico

By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, June 23, 2006; A18

QUERETARO, Mexico -- Presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is often compared with South American leftists, has found a model in an icon from the north: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

López Obrador's economics team has developed a blueprint for what they call the "Mexican New Deal." Their modern version of Depression-era populism is an ambitious program to create millions of jobs and stem migration by undertaking huge public works projects, including a railroad network, vast housing developments, ports and timber replanting.

"Roosevelt didn't solve all of America's problems, but he gave American society a sense that they were on the right track," Manuel Camacho Sol?s, one of López Obrador's top advisers, said in an interview. "Andrés Manuel López Obrador can represent something like that for Mexico."

López Obrador's proposals to stimulate Mexico's economy are part of a far-reaching agenda that would alter some of the touchstones of the government. He has advanced symbolic proposals -- such as moving out of the luxurious presidential compound known as Los Pinos and into the National Palace on Mexico City's downtown square. And he has suggested significant structural changes, such as chopping Mexico's six-year presidential term in half by holding a referendum after three years on whether the president should remain in office.

López Obrador, a member of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, has been the focal point of Mexico's upcoming presidential contest for two years. For most of that time, the 52-year-old former Mexico City mayor has been the runaway favorite. But after various shifts in the polls, he is now in a tight race with Felipe Calderón, of Mexican President Vicente Fox's National Action Party.

The massive scope of López Obrador's economic proposals has come to define his candidacy. And while he has drawn legions of admirers captivated by his signature line -- "For the good of all, first the poor," -- he has also inspired a roster of detractors. Enrique Krauze, one of Mexico's most respected historians, dismissed López Obrador's proposals as "wonderful dreams."

"Many of his plans are simply unfeasible," Krauze said.

A López Obrador presidency would begin with a government-subsidized push to build between 600,000 and 1 million homes that would be sold or rented at low prices to the poor, his advisers say. José Maria Peréz Gay, a former Mexican diplomat who advises the campaign, predicted in an interview that the home-building effort would lessen migration to the United States -- now as many 1 million Mexicans per year -- by 10 to 15 percent.

The home-building projects would be followed by construction of major railroad lines to connect Mexico City with the U.S. border and speed transport of goods to shipping lines in the Pacific and the Yucatan Peninsula. The third step would be a gigantic timber planting operation to stimulate the lumber industry and encourage Mexicans not to leave. "He who plants a tree on his land stays on his land," Peréz Gay said. The workers for these projects would come from government labor stations strategically positioned to intercept migrants before they leave for the United States. The home construction project, in particular, would "kill two birds with one stone" by providing homes and jobs, Peréz Gay said.

"We can only do this if we launch a Roosevelt-style New Deal," he said.

López Obrador's campaign team draws parallels between the Roosevelt-era United States, with its high unemployment and foundering economy, and present-day Mexico, which Perez Gay says is "swimming in a sea of inequality."

"If it wasn't for Roosevelt there would have been great social unrest in the U.S. We have the same situation here," Camacho said.

The big question concerns where López Obrador would get the money for his building proposals, as well as to back his promises to increase pensions and lower gas and electric bills. López Obrador has assured voters that he won't raise taxes, and that he will pay for his projects by cutting what he calls unnecessary government. He is counting on loans from the United States and Canada. But he also needs support from the private sector, made up of the business community he has spent much of his campaign railing against as beneficiaries of preferential treatment from Fox's government.

"The problem is that, at the end of the day, it's simply a case of fuzzy math," Arturo Sarukhan, a strategist for Calderón, said in an interview. "He calls bankers 'parasites,' tells businessmen they will see their 'unfair advantages' end, then he expects their help."

López Obrador has taken steps to repair his relationship with Mexico's business leaders. He recently told an audience in Queretaro, a picturesque colonial town northeast of Mexico City, that "we're not against business people as they say," referring to allegations made against him by Calderón. "We are against those who traffic in influence and are corrupt."

Still, the prospect of a López Obrador presidency has made some international investors jittery. He has already taken a position sure to anger American lawmakers, saying he would not honor Mexico's commitment under the North American Free Trade Agreement to eliminate tariffs on U.S. corn and beans. In a recent report, the investment firm Barclays Capital noted "market pessimism about Mexico's July presidential election and the possibility of a L?pez Obrador victory," though his track record as mayor of Mexico City from 2000 to 2005 "does not appear worrisome."

While he was mayor, López Obrador -- known as "Amlo" in Mexico City street slang, a name derived from his initials -- was a prolific builder. He oversaw the renovation of the city's crumbling downtown historic district and added an expensive second deck to an interior highway, which critics say has done little to alleviate the monumental traffic problem in one of the world's largest metropolises.

Kathleen Bruhn, author of "Taking on Goliath: Emergence of a New Left Party and the Struggle for Democracy in Mexico," said L?pez Obrador might encounter resistance from a divided legislature. But she said he may still be able to accomplish some of his goals by applying techniques he employed while he was mayor, such as cutting government salaries and saving money by awarding some service contracts to non-union firms.

"Some of [his proposals] he can certainly pull off," Bruhn said. "In Mexico City he pulled off a lot of things people did not expect him to do."

Calderón has attacked López Obrador throughout the campaign for increasing Mexico City's debt to $3.8 billion by the time he resigned in 2005 to run for president. But Laura Barrientos, an analyst with the credit-rating agency Moody's, said previous mayors had raised the debt more than López Obrador and that his administration did "a decent job of living within their means."

Still, Barrientos said, there is a general uneasiness among investors that a L?pez Obrador presidency would continue "the leftist movement of Venezuela and Bolivia."

"Should López Obrador win," she said, "there may be a lull in investing in Mexico until the market sees what he's doing."

Ever confident, López Obrador is not waiting for the election to woo Wall Street. Not long ago, he sent Camacho on the road for a fancy dinner with investment executives at New York's 21 Club. His mission: persuade America that Mexico can make a New Deal, too.

Open Letter to President Vicente Fox Quezada:

2006-06-04T01:34:00.000-07:00

H. President Vicente Fox Quezada:

We the Mexican citizens currently living abroad, respectfully address you in times when important issues are been debated in our country:

First of all, we wish to look at the current situation of the Mexican people who, due to economic and political reasons are exiled in Unites States, Canada and Europe in the so called developed countries, looking for better opportunities and protection for their families. In this case Mexicans, as it has never seen before in history, are facing a tremendous attack that criminalizes their honest work, their unity and family solidarity.

For that reason in the case of United States and other parts of the world, we have gone out on the streets, to fight for the full recognition of our fundamental rights we are entitled to. These are our rights, we want them in full, for that reason we do not accept a partial solution that only contemplate temporary workers that are nothing but modern contracts of slavery. In this type of labor arrangement people do not have the right to have their family close, nor to have the right of a residence or citizenship in their host country.

We are not compliant with that course of events; we are going to continue to fight if we are not given back our rights. For that reason we request you that you do not accept this kind of arrangements and the least, not to thank the US government given the installment of their offensive wall and the militarization of the Mexican-US border.

This is our fight and we are the ones that should be invite to discuss and negotiate, not the Mexican government that represents the one who expelled us because of the lack of employment or due to the systematic persecution of radical groups such as “El Yunque”, that do not accept diversity impelling thousands of Mexicans to exit their country and to request asylum out of their country.

Another priority of ours is the current political situation of Mexico. We are observing alarming actions of the Mexican government with its intromission in the union’s activities, the murders in Lazaro, Cardenas, Michoacan, the murdered people in Atenco and its flagrant manipulation of the electoral process. The protests of Mexicans abroad denouncing the rapes suffered by the women in Atenco are expanding around the world, events that are not only sad, but also an embarrassment for our country.
It is very disturbing to witness the “dirty war” in the media, the waste of the nations resources and migrant’s remittances, used in the media to attack their rival candidates. It is clear that we do not learn from experience. Civil society, with independence of their electoral preference, is not going to allow the abuse, partiality and fraud.

For the very last time, and despite of the severe misdoings of your government, we give you the benefit of the doubt. In 2000 we supported you, because we considered you a democrat. We are concern you prove us wrong.

We are expecting a federal government respectful of the democratic decision of its people. We want a government that stops the “dirty war” in the media that acts with transparency and one avoiding the misuse of the police forces against workers, women and children.

We will be very attentive to the coming event in Mexico, we hope you actions reflect the enormous responsibility that is required and we will be as always, unconditionally supportive of the Mexican nation and its decisions. We will do whatever we consider necessary to keep the democratic progress in our country.

Sincerely,

The Exiles of Poverty, Liberty and Diversity