Electoral Crisis in Mexico (big suprise)

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2-0-Sixx

2-0-Sixx

Sicc OG
#1
May 13, 2002
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#1
Below is a NYT article about the recent election in Mexico, which was "too close to call" and in which both candidates have declared victory.

This could get very interesting. Many supporters of left-leaning Lopez Obrador will be very suspicious of fraud if he ends up losing. And for good reason. Many still remember 1988 when PRD candidate, Cuahtemoc Cardenas won the presidential election (this is established fact in Mexico) causing the government to stop the counting, hijack the ballot boxes, and return some time later to declare victory for their candidate Salinas.

It is also occurring in the context of the PAN and PRI's attempt to eliminate Obrador from presidential contention last year on a legal technicality. This move was overturned by massive protests of 700,000 and 1,500,000 respectively, which makes this situation all the more interesting. Obrador's supporters have been mobilized and will hit the streets en masse if their is any question of fraud.

There is no guarantee, but this could stimulate movements which will radicalize people far further than Obrador's Lula-like center-leftism and the possibility of violence can't be ruled out either.


Here is the article from NYT,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/03/w...amp;th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
 
ReKz

ReKz

Sicc OG
#4
May 26, 2002
1,338
1
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#4
This should be interesting (if there is a recount).....because according to Mexico's electoral system, a candidate can win just by having 1 vote more than the other.......
 
nefar559

nefar559

Sicc OG
#8
Jul 7, 2002
3,105
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#8
Marcos Speaks: Fox and the IFE Modified the PREP Results to Prepare an Electoral Fraud
“We’re not in the electoral vibe but for ethical and moral reasons, as Zapatistas, if we see something is wrong, well, we have to say it”

By Subcomandante Marcos
Translated from Radio Insurgente by Narco News
source: http://www.narconews.com/Issue42/article1961.html
July 4, 2006

The following text is translated from the final part of a radio program on Monday, July 3, 2006, in which Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN, in its Spanish initials) participated. The text is from a broadcast conversation between Marcos (Delegate Zero of the Other Campaign) and show host Lucas of Radio 620 AM in Mexico City. It can be heard in full at the following link:

http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/la-otra-campana/371/

SCI Marcos: “We want to share a report that the Sixth Commission received. According to the report there has been a fraud in the elections for president of the Republic. The Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), in complicity with, or better said, with the sponsorship of the president of the Republic, held back between one million and one-and-a-half million votes so that they could be added to benefit the National Action Party (PAN) candidate Felipe Calderón.

“According to this report, on (Sunday) afternoon between 5:30 and 6 p.m. Vicente Fox called (Luis Carlos) Ugalde, the IFE president, to ask him to change the entry of results of the PREP, the Preliminary Election Results Program, in such a way so that the first results entered came from the polling places that benefited Felipe Calderón and, that later they would create other votes for him. According to this report, the candidate of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), would have had between one million and a million-and-a-half votes more than the National Action Party. But thanks to this play the results are being changed to exactly what they want them to be. It remains to be seen what the PRD and its candidate will say about this.

“If you have any doubt, if you saw it on television yesterday, look at the message by IFE, by the president of IFE, by Mr. Ugalde. Immediately after that, in fractions of a second, came the message by Vicente Fox, already answering the first message. It’s clear that he knew beforehand what the IFE would say before the president of the Institute said it. And so according to the report we received they made an agreement to conduct this fraud and be able to impose Felipe Calderón. That is the report.

“We are not in the electoral vibe. But due to ethical and moral reasons, as Zapatistas, if we see something that is wrong, well, we have to say it, and what we are seeing is what they are doing, a fraud there up above. You are listening to Radio Insurgente, the voice of the voiceless.”

Lucas: “Well, some newspapers and magazines have announced that, not in the same way as in 1988, but in a more sophisticated manner… The president of the council, of IFE, Ugalde, said last night that there were no possibilities of saying who won… They were preparing, or are preparing, so that Fox would tell them.”

SCI Marcos: “Well, yes, this is what we are seeing. We make this announcement to whom it may concern… They are setting a trap with the PREP and the Federal Electoral Institute. He wants Felipe Calderón, additionally, to protect the backs of the presidential couple Vicente Fox and Marta Sahagún for all the corruption hey have done. You are listening to Radio Insurgente, the voice of the voiceless of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.”
 
ColdBlooded

ColdBlooded

Sicc OG
#9
Apr 25, 2002
15,044
157
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#9
The mexican electoral commission was saying on sunday night that they were planning a full count that would start on Wed and could last for an undetermined amount of time. They had said that preliminary results which they were planning to release were within the statistical margin of error (as you can see with it being less than 1% difference). The media is doing a lot to fan the flames already on this one.
 
ColdBlooded

ColdBlooded

Sicc OG
#11
Apr 25, 2002
15,044
157
0
#11
i was hoping they would pick a winner on Sunday before i had to leave

things were far less eventful than i had hoped w/ this election

guess i should have gone for the aftermath instead of the run up
 
2-0-Sixx

2-0-Sixx

Sicc OG
#14
May 13, 2002
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#14
Fraud video claim in Mexico poll

Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says he has "irrefutable" video proof of fraud committed by his election rivals.

The electoral authorities say the video images showing supposed irregularities have been misinterpreted.

Results from the 2 July poll show conservative candidate Felipe Calderon winning by 0.57 percentage points.

Mr Lopez Obrador has filed a legal challenge and called for nationwide protests to press calls for a recount.

Amateur video

Mr Calderon secured 35.88% of the 2 July vote, against 35.31% for Mr Lopez Obrador.

The latter's 900-page lawsuit alleges violations before and during the election.

Mr Lopez Obrador's complaint includes accusations that Mr Calderon overspent on his campaign and claims that there was unfair government support for him.

He also alleges that some polling areas had more votes than registered voters, and that a computer software programme skewed the initial count of votes.


Lopez Obrador supporter with poster calling for vote by vote recount

Press at odds over crisis

Mr Lopez Obrador has asked the electoral tribunal to order a full manual recount of all the ballots.

He said he would wait to see the court's ruling on his lawsuit before deciding if he would accept it.

The shaky amateur video footage aired at Mr Lopez Obrador's campaign headquarters showed two incidents which he claimed were examples of "old-style fraud". He said that that they had been sent in by some of his supporters.

One tape, filmed in Queretaro state during a recount of votes for the presidential election, showed what seemed to be an election official refusing to recount the ballots in a box which had been declared in favour of Mr Calderon.

The other showed an alleged supporter of Mr Calderon's National Action Party (Pan) apparently stuffing six ballots into a box being used for congressional elections, which were held on the same day as the presidential race.

The Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) said the man was putting some ballots that had been put in the wrong box into the correct box and that this had been witnessed by representatives of all the main parties.

"The images in this video, related with supposed irregularities, have been misinterpreted," an IFE statement said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5167420.stm
 
2-0-Sixx

2-0-Sixx

Sicc OG
#16
May 13, 2002
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#16
Irregularities documented by the López Obrador campaign or reported in the media include:

* Two-and-a-half-million ballots from over 11,000 ballot boxes were not included in the preliminary results released on July 3 because of irregularities such as blank spaces in the tally sheets, unclear penmanship and arithmetic errors.

* Ten ballot boxes were found in a Mexico City dump, mostly from precincts that went to López Obrador. Loose ballots were also found in the same dump. Similar events took place in the 1988 election, widely believed to have been stolen by the then-ruling PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party).

* Tally sheets sent to the IFE differed in some cases from the tallies attached to the ballot boxes.

When a vote-by-vote count was allowed by the IFE in one district from the state of Veracruz, López Obrador’s total increased by several thousand votes.

* A recount in one electoral district in López Obrador’s home state, Tabasco, turned up an additional 20,405 votes for him, according to the newspaper El Universal.

* There were unusual discrepancies between the number of voters at particular locations and the total votes cast for president or for Congress.

* There were an unusually large number of spoiled and blank ballots, more than 900,000, which poll workers discarded on the grounds that the voter’s intention could not be determined.

Eyewitness accounts published in the American press provided examples of pro-Calderón bias in the conduct of the election. A New York Times reporter visited Guadalajara, a city under PAN control: “Six ballot boxes were opened for a recount in District 8 because of errors on the tally sheets. In every case, the preliminary tallies turned out to be wrong. In one case, polling workers had miscounted so badly that they gave 100 extra votes to a third candidate, Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, and doubled the 235 votes for Mr. Calderón.”

The Los Angeles Times reported the contrasting conduct of election officials in two Mexico City neighborhoods, one where the vote was pro-Calderón, the other for López Obrador. In the upper-class San Miguel Chapultepec neighborhood, the district electoral board refused six appeals from the PRD to recount ballots. In the poorer Tlalpan district, the electoral board agreed to recount seven boxes and López Obrador gained 310 votes.
 
2-0-Sixx

2-0-Sixx

Sicc OG
#17
May 13, 2002
49,944
47,801
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#17

Mexican Presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) presents a video that according to him shows a man filling an electoral ballot box in Mexico City. Lopez Obrador said he had "irrefutable" videotape proof of fraud in last week's presidential vote, as his supporters promised non-stop street demonstrations until he gets a recount.(AFP)

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party, is demanding a manual recount of the entire 41 million ballots



General view of supporters of Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador during a rally at the Zocalo square in Mexico City

 
2-0-Sixx

2-0-Sixx

Sicc OG
#20
May 13, 2002
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47,801
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www.socialistworld.net
#20
1,5 million march in Mexico against electoral fraud
17 July 2006



One and a half million people, according to the organisers, marched on Sunday, July 16th to protest against electoral fraud in the Mexican presidential elections of July 2nd. This was the culmination of a national march called by PRD candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), demanding a full recount, "vote by vote, polling station by polling station". Even according to the Mexican DF police, which put the figure of those on the march at 1.1 million, this was one of the largest demonstrations in Mexican history.



The mood was very radical with slogans like "If we get Calderon, there will be a revolution". AMLO said that this was only the beginning of a campaign of mass civil resistance which would include setting up camps outside the offices of every one of the country's 300 electoral districts, setting up a national committee to coordinate the mobilisation and calling a new national march in Mexico city on July 30th, with the target of doubling the attendance.

Fri Jul 21, 1:28 PM ET

OAXACA, Mexico - Protesters have taken over the center of folkloric Oaxaca, making tourists show identification at makeshift checkpoints, smashing the windows of quaint hotels and spray-painting revolutionary slogans. Police are nowhere in sight.

The protests follow other eruptions of civil unrest and class conflict that have plagued President Vicente Fox as his term winds to a close.



 
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