In what appears at least on the surface to be a repeat of some of last two US presidential elections, the conservative Felipe Calderon won by the smallest of margins over leftist rival Lopez Obrador amidst allegations from the left of widespread fraud and a demand for a recount.
With all of the 41 million votes counted, Calderon of President Vicente Fox's National Action Party had 35.88 percent to 35.31 percent for Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party. The two were separated by about 220,000 votes.
Roberto Madrazo, whose Institutional Revolutionary Party controlled Mexico for 71 years until Fox's victory in 2000, had 22.27 percent, and two minor candidates split the rest.
Challenges go before the country's top electoral court. A winner must be declared by September 6. The next president begins a single, six-year term on December 1.
Calderon's party has made Mexican business happy by supporting NAFTA and other trade agreements that allow foreign companies to do much of their manufacturing in Mexico. Starkly contrasting with Calderon's vision is Obrador, who supports significant economic reform in the name of lessening the disparity between the wealthy and the poor in Mexico, and restructuring international agreements so that more money is left in Mexico when foreign countries use domestic labor. Unlike Calderon, who advocates a more modest position with respect to the US (though at least in his rhetoric, not quite so servile a stance as that of Vicente Fox, his predecessor) Obrador is feared by the US to be hostile to US interests because of his economic views on the US and Mexico. Whether the same elements of foul play that were involved in both of Bush's presidential victories were also at work in Mexico remains to be seen, however Obrador's plea that each ballot be counted sounds familiar, and seems perfectly reasonable.
Not that we are thinkers, but fixing the polling in Mexico would not behoove either PR(e)D or PAN, so I doubt that there was any electoral chicanery. Such is precisely what the two parties in question had been railing against, during the run of the PRI, and now that they have (some) transparency in Mexican governance and votes, with Fox's win in '00 and another non-PRI win in '06, I have to think that the momentum is there to remove the gunk from the democratic machine.
Of course, that is not to say that the PRI wouldn't have engaged in dirty pool to sully their rivals, fixing the race for one or the other in certain precincts, where PRI still has the plurality/majority, so that they can raise again as the "real" reformers.
But, yes, if there was anything foul, it wasn't generated by the two leading entrants.
Obrador, who supports significant economic reform in the name of lessening the disparity between the wealthy and the poor in Mexico, and restructuring international agreements so that more money is left in Mexico when foreign countries use domestic labor.
This is commonly the problem for Latin America. Resources are swept away with little if any domestic investment.
Who's to say that the PAN isn't doing the same thing that the PRI used to do to rig elections? Has there been significant reform to prevent this? And, as far a developing nation is concerned, how much reform is enough? Considering that the most powerful nation in the world had a rigged presidential election in 2000, what makes you think that México, with much fewer resources and economic and democratic development, has any more transparent elections than we do?
Of course, should Obrador ultimately win, the Bush Administration will paint the new leadership in México with the same brush that it paints Cuba and Venezuela, which is as bad a policy for México as it is the United States.
Who is to say that the PANistas are doing the same thing that the PRIistas alwasy did? Have there been significant changes.
Yes. There have been. The PANistas beat the PRD/PT coalition because the Mexican people voted for a future, as they did with President Fox. It does not matter where communism is tried, it just does not work. It is a religion, however; and like Scientology, it just will not go away.
I am sorry if people are upset because Mexico had rejected the past and will march into the future, but you did not vote in that election. Nor do you have a stake in it, as I do.
legionnaire
Belgium
November 2003
JUL 06, 2006 02:32 PM