Mexican Elections | VivirLatino

Posts Tagged ‘mexican elections’

Mexican Elections : No Recount for You

8:19 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · mexico|Politics · Comments Off

7 Aug 2006

For those inside and outside of Mexico hoping for a recount of the votes from the July 2nd presidential election, hope is dead. On Saturday Mexico’s top electoral court rejected Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s Democratic Revolution Party’s request for a recount. According to AP:

In Mexico’s central plaza, thousands of protesters watched the session on a huge screen, chanting “Vote by vote!” and drowning out the judges’ statements.

AMLO responded by telling the crowd:

For us, it’s very clear,” he said. “If they refuse a full recount, that’s proof that we won the presidential election…. They may have the money and the power, but we have what’s most important — the people’s support.

It’s very clear that the Mexican court’s decision will help keep alive the image of a corrupt Mexican electoral system with something to hide and that hurts all Mexicans, regardless of party affiliation.

Via / Yahoo! News & the LA Times
Image Via / Columbus Dispatch

Lopez Obrador brings together half a million Mexicans

12:07 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · mexico|Politics · 5 Comments

10 Jul 2006

Saturday was a big day in Mexico City. As promised, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the “defeated” candidate for the presidency of the Mexican republic is anything but defeated as he managed to organize half a million Mexicans in the city’s main plaza, el Zócalo, to support the cause of refuting the results of the recent elections.

Once again, Mexican author Elena Poniatowska documents the event first hand in an editorial for Mexican daily La Jornada, reflecting on AMLO’s power to make everyone present feel as if they were visiting with a friend:

“El Zócalo is Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s living room. He asks, of more than 500,000 men and women of every age, “How about Wednesday at six?” and they respond “yes”, raise one hand in unison and shake it in the air. “Here, here I am. It’s me, look at me.” They feel recognized. The intimacy with AMLO covers the whole plaza.

Mexican Elections: It’s Official, Calderón Wins and AMLO says it’s on!

8:37 am By Maegan La Mala · mexico|Politics · Comments Off

7 Jul 2006

I woke up this morning and it’s official, with only a 0.57% lead Felipe Calderón of the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) has been declared the winner of the Mexican presidential election. But it ain’t over until the fat lady sings her last bolero and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said:

We cannot recognize or accept these results.

AMLO is calling for a rally of his supporters in Mexico City’s vast central square tomorrow. As one supporter of Lopez Obrador was quoted as saying by Reuters:

If a revolution is needed, a revolution there will be.

Via / Reuters

Mexican elections: Where will a PAN triumph lead?

5:53 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · mexico|Politics · Comments Off

6 Jul 2006

One hundred percent of the Mexican voting districts have reported in and the results, not yet officially finalized, are pretty much final: Calderón leads López Obrador by a miniscule .57% of a point.

Does this mean that Calderón will be declared president? Who knows. López Obrador is not giving up the fight, planning to formally refute the results and organizing supporters for a protest in Mexico City’s main square this weekend.

My question is: with so many irregularities, anomalies, votes in the garbage, et al how could this minute advantage on the part of the PAN be declared a legal win? What happened between now and two days ago that would prove that this victory is legitimate? Why should the Mexican people trust these results?

The issues of trust, corruption and the declaration of victory on the part of a ruling party are delicate ones for Mexico, and I fear that while López Obrador may call on his supporters to exhibit restraint in their reaction to the official results, there may be incidents of violence on the part of a large group of outraged citizens. Americans might have felt just as outraged during Gore-Bush, but we aren’t known to take to the streets like citizens of other countries.

Let’s hope that the truth finally prevails and that no one gets hurt in the process.

Image via El Universal

Poniatowska on voting irregularities and dissidence

10:05 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Celebrities|mexico|Politics · 1 Comment

5 Jul 2006

Famed Mexican author Elena Poniatowska set out on Sunday to vote just like every other Mexican citizen who felt the weight of their civic duty. Elena, like others, was an eyewitness to shocking irregularities at her local polling place, and wrote it up in an editorial called “Si se enojan los volcanes” in yesterday’s La Jornada newspaper. Given that this is the kind of reporting you won’t read about in U.S. mainstream media and that not all of our readers read Spanish, we’re translating the entire piece:

“Just before 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, July 2nd, Paula Haro, my daughter, and Lorenzo Hagerman, my son in-law, stood in line to vote on Avenida Revolución, at the Casa de la Cultura Jaime Sabines. Since Paula and Lorenzo don’t live in Mexico City but in Mérida they looked for a special polling place and I accompanied them before I went to my polling place in la colonia del Carmen. By 2:00 pm they (Paula and Lorenzo) still had not voted (because the polling place opened late and there were a lot of voters), as two police officers counted those who were waiting in line out in the sun and said “There are only 750 ballots so there aren’t enough.” In the line appeared a whole bunch of nuns (some about 80 years old) and none of them were denied voting, but at 2:30 p.m. the rest of the line had to give up their chance to vote (after waiting for several hours) because of the lack of ballots. While many went over to the entrance door to yell “We want to vote, we want to vote”, they had no other choice than to disperse.

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