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.