Thread: Leftist now has lead in Mexico

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4027251.html

July 5, 2006, 11:17PM
Leftist now has lead in Mexico
Reversal at the start of official vote count adds to heavy tension

By DUDLEY ALTHAUS and MARION LLOYD
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

MEXICO CITY - The official count Wednesday of some 41 million votes cast in Mexico's presidential race produced a stunning turnaround, putting left-leaning candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ahead by just over one percentage point.

A bitterly disputed preliminary count of the votes had given conservative Felipe Calderon, of the ruling National Action Party, about a 250,000-vote lead. Calderon campaign aides expressed confidence that the official tally would give them the victory, saying the early counted votes were from areas that Lopez Obrador had won.

Luis Carlos Ugalde, president of the embattled Federal Electoral Institute, which is overseeing the closest election in Mexican history, told foreign reporters that the margin between the two candidates is going to "be very tight in the end."

After 14 hours of counting, nearly 89 percent of the precincts had been tallied. IFE officials said a final vote total might be announced overnight.

If Lopez Obrador, 52, wins, he'd be in the position of defending a victory in elections that he and his followers have suggested were badly flawed, even fraudulent. A Lopez Obrador win also might force Calderon to impugn elections that he has defended so far this week as clean and fair.

Such a dramatic reversal will throw into question the statistical abilities of the autonomous electoral institute, called IFE, which has promoted itself as an impartial player whose work is based on impeccable technology.

"It's no-win situation," said political scientist Sergio Aguayo, an early pro-democracy activist during the fall of one-party rule here. "Somebody is going to win the presidency. But the democratic process is losing."

"IFE failed," Aguayo said. "What happened? That's what a lot of us are asking."

'This is a fraud'
As the tally continued into the afternoon, leftist demonstrators gathered at the institute's gates, chanting Lopez Obrador's name and calling for the head of Ugalde, the elections chief. Many protesters held wanted posters bearing Ugalde's picture, others waved red flags bearing the Communist hammer and sickle.

"This is a fraud and the people are not going to permit it," said Jesus Avila, leading a group of protesters from a south Mexico City neighborhood. "Thanks to the pressure that we are making, they are going to reverse the results."

Ugalde, meanwhile, was inside the IFE headquarters defending Sunday's election and his institution to foreign reporters. The electoral institute is impartial, Ugalde insisted, the election was an "exemplary" model of democracy.

"Many of the issues that have arisen are because of the closeness of the race," he said. "It has been such a democratic election that the margin is so thin."

Votes for president were being tallied Wednesday in IFE offices across Mexico. Under IFE rules, the process must continue uninterrupted until the final ballot box is checked and the tallies approved.

At IFE district office No. 10 in Mexico City, fatigue was already setting in by midday. Two dozen IFE workers and representatives of all the political parties who contested Sunday's election sat at a long table piled high with papers, reviewing the ballot box tallies one by one.

As the committee president reeled off the figures, the party representatives reviewed their lists and snacked on chips and soda. After five hours of counting, representatives of Lopez Obrador's party had requested only six of the more than 200 ballot boxes be opened and the votes recounted.

Such recounts are permitted only under strictly defined circumstances, such as when a tally sheet is missing, and the IFE representatives agreed to recount only one box. They discovered just one missing vote.

"We might be quibbling over three votes, but if you add those up nationwide, that can make or break the election," said Luis Eduardo Aranja, a Lopez Obrador representative. "If the final count gives the victory to the National Action candidate, then we'll accept it. But I doubt very seriously that that will be the case."

Political stability in play?
Lopez Obrador campaign aides said that they had found "grave inconsistencies" in some 50,000 of the more than 130,000 voting precincts nationwide. Those included more than 18,000 precincts in which the votes cast outnumbered the ballots authorized.

"The political stability of the country is in play," Lopez Obrador said in a press conference. "I want that the system process be clean, that they open the ballot envelopes, that the ballots be counted and the results respected."

In his own face-the-press moment, Calderon charged that Lopez Obrador was trying to win through intimidation.

"They are trying to undermine an election without having the results to back it up," Calderon said.

Calderon and Lopez Obrador have been locked in a battle of images since election authorities declared the election too close to call Sunday night.

Each has declared himself president. And each has accused the other of unfairly declaring himself president.

Calderon on Wednesday offered Lopez Obrador a Cabinet post in his government. That drew grunts and smirks from the protesters in front of the election offices.

It has all been noise, jockeying for political advantage and public opinion.

The final vote tally was always going to decide the presidency.

And the final tally is now.

Looks like my going out on a limb on the 2nd of July to call the election for the leftists is coming to fruition---sobering and frightening!

"others waved red flags bearing the Communist hammer and sickle."

This should make for an entertaining relationship with Bush---heheheh!

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... &highlight


Now there will really be something to worry about! Instability and a coup de etat South of the Border? You don't think that illegal immigration will increase, do you?

This is what we have to look forward to if we don't get these people out of the USA quickly

Passions Rise as Mexico Awaits Count
Populist Contests Rival's Narrow Lead

By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 5, 2006; Page A08

MEXICO CITY, July 4 -- A big question looms over Mexico: Will Andrés Manuel López Obrador unleash the fury of the streets?

Emotions here intensified Tuesday as Mexico's electoral commission counted additional ballots, shrinking the lead of López Obrador's opponent, Felipe Calderón, from 400,000 votes, or 1 percent, to 257,000 votes, or 0.64 percent. López Obrador's supporters have also reacted emotionally as the populist candidate and his top aides have outlined a growing list of alleged election law violations. No large demonstrations have been held yet, apparently because López Obrador's supporters are waiting for a signal from him and because they want to see the results of an official count that begins Wednesday


Still, the rhetoric is getting more heated. On Tuesday, López Obrador's campaign demanded a ballot-by-ballot recount. And Emilio Serrano, a federal legislator from the candidate's Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD, said in an interview that violence is possible if the vote-tampering allegations are proved.

"We are not afraid to die in the fight," Serrano said. "We in the public are tired of the lies and the abuses, which have been demonstrated over the length of our history."

Frustration and rage were spelled out in dozens of signs affixed by supporters to the wall of the modest apartment building where López Obrador lives in southern Mexico City. "Stand up for our vote!" one sign read.

Guadalupe Espina, a soft-spoken homemaker, leaned against a green Cadillac, watching one person after another put up signs.

"This is going to get bad," she said. "There were so many people at his last rally. There were so many people when he campaigned in the little towns. How could he have lost?"

Espina, 46, is a prototypical López Obrador voter, an out-of-work, lifelong resident of Mexico City, where López Obrador was mayor from 2000 until 2005. In a calm voice barely above a whisper, she said, "There could be violence.
"And if there is, I'll be there, I'll get involved."

López Obrador has incited massive demonstrations in Mexico City in the past. In 2004, he called tens of thousands of supporters into the streets to protest an attempt by President Vicente Fox's administration to impeach him and keep him off the presidential ballot. López Obrador fought off the impeachment and immediately became the overwhelming front-runner in opinion polls. His advisers have said in recent interviews that he may once again mobilize street protests, though they have insisted that the demonstrations will be peaceful.

Calderón, who ran on a platform of continuing "Foxismo," free trade and job creation, spent the day assuring supporters that his slim margin would hold up. He told reporters that he is so confident that he no longer gets out of bed 8early, as he did during the campaign.

López Obrador's campaign alleges that 3 million of the more than 40 million votes cast were lost by Mexico's electoral authority, the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE. The institute's head, Luis Carlos Ugalde, said in a television interview that 3 million votes were not counted because of problems such as duplicate ballots. Some of the ballots may be counted after being reviewed by the three major parties, but it is unclear whether that could 8affect the ultimate outcome. López Obrador's campaign aides have also said that votes were shaved off his total in his home state of Tabasco and that voters were threatened with rejection from social programs if they did not cast ballots for Calderón.

López Obrador's supporters are generally suspicious of IFE and of the nation's electoral process. Hard feelings remain over the presidential election of 1988 -- before IFE was formed -- when a consensus of observers said the then-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party committed widespread fraud to defeat the PRD candidate, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas.

After the official count of this year's balloting is completed by IFE -- a process that could last until the weekend -- López Obrador is expected to challenge the outcome before a special electoral court that is required to certify presidential election results before Sept. 6.

"This is all a bad joke on the country," said Amsy Legaspi, a 23-year-old college student majoring in communication, as she lingered outside López Obrador's apartment building.

A few steps away, a sign outside the candidate's apartment, written by some unknown, impassioned hand, summed up her feelings: "If it's necessary, we'll revolt."http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/04/AR2006070400966.html

Oh, and by the way, if you followed the El Salvador link of Brian503a's original post, and my response to the El Salvador dilemna, I forgot to include the cozy relationship Reagan(1980-198 had with then Mexican President Portillo (1978-1984). They were fond of each other, exchanging little gifts like horses, and ranch visits, while outlining the immigration "policy" that is coming to bite us in the @$$ a quarter century later later!

I want to remind you that history has a way of turning the cards on our "great heroes" (ie: Reagan)! The cards are still being spread for Reagan's other big ideological coup---the "fall" of the USSR! Judging by the way Russia has behaved in the last 5 years, the USSR is alive and well! Stronger than ever, using natural resources and energy for extortion, and making a once worthless Ruble convertible to gold! A (former?) KGB operative stationed in the former East Germany/Berlin has usurped democracy to gain Stalinist control of a country reminiscing of it's prior might!

Originally Posted by ThomasMoore

Oh, and by the way, if you followed the El Salvador link of Brian503a's original post, and my response to the El Salvador dilemna, I forgot to include the cozy relationship Reagan(1980-198 had with then Mexican President Portillo (1978-1984). They were fond of each other, exchanging little gifts like horses, and ranch visits, while outlining the immigration "policy" that is coming to bite us in the @$$ a quarter century later later!

I want to remind you that history has a way of turning the cards on our "great heroes" (ie: Reagan)! The cards are still being spread for Reagan's other big ideological coup---the "fall" of the USSR! Judging by the way Russia has behaved in the last 5 years, the USSR is alive and well! Stronger than ever, using natural resources and energy for extortion, and making a once worthless Ruble convertible to gold! A (former?) KGB operative stationed in the former East Germany/Berlin has usurped democracy to gain Stalinist control of a country reminiscing of it's prior might!

Communism never fell.......only the "wall" took a dive. We are certainly in agreement here, Thomas, LOL. Many a disagreement I've had over this for many years

Good morning, 2ndamendsis,

Originally Posted by 2ndamendsis

This is what we have to look forward to if we don't get these people out of the USA quickly

Exciting Times for Hillary