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400,000 Protest Fraud in Mexico Election
Submitted by Elizabeth Rathbun on July 9, 2006 - 6:39pm
On Saturday July 8, a massive crowd, estimated at 280,000 by authorities and 400,000 by organizers protested the conservative victory in the country's presidential election in Mexico City's huge downtown Zocalo square and neighboring streets.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, pictured above, asserts election fraud after Calderon was declared winner by 244,000 votes. He plans to cite the numerous irregularities in the Mexico election in court and he will also continue with street protests, saying Saturday's demonstration would be the first of several such actions, but insisting the rallies would be peaceful. The signs above say, "No to electoral fraud and Lopez Obrador, President."
The man who stands up for the intentions of voters! Viva Obrador! Get me on the First Plane to Mexico!
"There is clear evidence that they took away our votes to favor the right," said the former Mexico City mayor on Saturday, who advocates the cause of the millions of impoverished Mexicans.
It brings back tearful deja-vu of U.S. elections in Florida and Ohio.
** Instances with more votes than voters in some polling districts
** Cases with more votes for senators than for president in some districts, including Obrador’s home district of Tobasco
** Numerous instances of voter’s intentions not clear
** Ballots found in dump
** Tallies altered in 50,000 polling stations
** Hundreds of thousands of votes remain uncounted, miscounted or voided
** Vicente Fox assisting in right wing smear campaign to favor Calderon, buying votes, and exceeding spending limits
Read more details in Greg Palast’s reports and on-the-ground dispatches from Mexico at www.gregpalast.com
This man has real strength! More comments from a true leader...
"This group not only has no interest in improving the life of millions of Mexicans, but has profound contempt for the poor," Obrador said.
Asked about foreign leaders, including U.S. President George W. Bush, who congratulated Calderon on his "victory," Lopez Obrador insisted "there is no president-elect in Mexico."
Translation: Who Cares What that dumb a*s has to say about anything?
The former Mexico City mayor lashed out at Calderon, claiming the Harvard-trained conservative served "a very powerful interest group in Mexico that for quite a while has converted the government into a committee at the service of a minority."
videotapes show fraud to support recount
Latest AFP Report (Agence France Press) Good source for Latin American news with accurate details absent in U.S. reports.
Agence France Presse -- English
July 10, 2006 Monday 9:55 PM GMT
Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador alleged on Monday he has "irrefutable" videotape proof of fraud in last week's presidential balloting as his supporters promised non-stop street demonstrations until he gets a recount.
Lopez Obrador launched an official challenge to the July 2 election late Sunday, after losing to conservative Felipe Calderon by some 244,000 votes -- little more than half a percent of the 41.7 million ballots cast.
Mexico's election tribunal took up the case on Monday after Lopez Obrador's organization delivered 900 pages documenting alleged vote fraud late Sunday.
The leftist's campaign chief, Jesus Ortega, warned of nationwide protests: "The struggle will begin Wednesday, and will be ongoing, with hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people."
They plan to jam Mexico City's Zocalo square and to march on the capital from 300 election districts.
A screening of the videotapes showed one person stuffing six allegedly pro-Calderon ballots into a ballot box in Guanajuato, the home state of President Vicente Fox and a base for Calderon's National Action Party (PAN).
A second video, according to Lopez Obrador, shows election poll watchers and PAN party representatives in Queretaro discussing a possible recount, after noting more ballots had been cast than the number of registered voters.
"This is irrefutable proof of general fraud in all the states, especially in the north," which voted heavily for Calderon, Lopez Obrador said.
The leftist politician's claims about the content of the videos could not be independently verified.
His Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) claimed voting was riddled with mistakes, abuses and other problems at 50,300 voting sites.
Lopez Obrador also alleged that Fox illegally campaigned in favor of Calderon, and that Calderon's ruling party far exceeded campaign spending limits, and that the party bought votes.
"We are not going to recognize Calderon's triumph if it is not legitimized by a vote-by-vote recount," said Gerardo Fernandez, a PRD spokesman.
Fox spokesman Ruben Aguilar said Monday that the Federal Electoral Tribunal will consider Lopez Obrador's complaints.
"It is up to the electoral authorities to analyze the demands and observations about the elections process and also up to them ... to give a response," Aguilar said.
However, Mexico's top election judge said in an interview before the vote but published on Sunday that a full recount was impractical.
"It is not legally valid to unpack the votes and do a recount," Leonel Castillo, who presides over the tribunal, told the weekly Milenio Semanal.
Castillo, however, said results at specific polling booths could be challenged and recounted.
The tribunal has until September 6 to issue a ruling, which cannot be appealed.
The winner is to take office on December 1 for a six-year term.
Similar nationwide protests followed the 1988 election, when leftist candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas was clearly in the lead until a computerized counting system crashed.
From then on, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, from the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), took the lead and was eventually declared the winner. Cardenas followers held nationwide protests for weeks.
Likewise, Lopez Obrador was allegedly the victim of vote fraud in 1994, when he failed in his bid to become governor of his home state of Tabasco, in an election marred by alleged vote buying.