The Mexican election battle is still going strong, despite claims of victory by the rightist candidate Calderon:

Despite what both Calderon and Lopez Obrador tell their supporters and what you read in press reports, the next President has yet to be officially declared. IFE is not the body responsible for officially announcing the next President. Rather, it is TRIFE (Electoral Tribunal) that will make an official announcement by early September, after addressing complaints filed by each party. The parties have four days to file their objections following the results of the tally sheet count — which was concluded last Thursday.

Last night, the PRD, Lopez Obrador’s party, delivered their official complaint to the tribunal.

TRIFE, a supposedly non-partisan, independent body, has the responsibility to examine irregularities brought forth to them. TRIFE, will therefore, have to consider facts such as:

  • Why hundreds of thousands of ballots have yet to be included in any count;
  • Why ballots have been found, literally, in the trash;
  • Why there was a massive amount of “drop-off”, i.e. where people showed up to vote but did not cast a vote for president;
  • Why, on Election Day, Casilla workers in places like Queretaro and Salamanca were caught on video, stuffing ballot boxes and changing tally sheets.
  • The use and role of public expenditures on Calderon’s campaign;
  • The intervention of the current President, Vicente Fox (a member of PAN), which benefitted Calderon, during the campaign, and which is illegal according to the Electoral Commission’s rules.

That’s quite a list of accusations. It seems that there were serious irregularities, despite claims that the election was fair. It’s not clear which party was behind the crimes, but it could well be all of them.

Still, many crimes like stuffing ballot boxes and refusing to count all of the votes cast point to a high degree of “access” to the ballots themselves. It is not beyond belief that PAN, the present ruling party, was behind much of the electioneering.

Whatever the case, I’m hoping for a quick and correct resolution to the crisis in Mexico. I hope people keep spilling out in the street. I heard that far more than the reported crowd of 100,000 came out to assemble in Mexico City. That’s a good start, but they’ve got to keep up the pressure. Remember Ukraine and what their people did to preserve democracy. In November 2004 the Ukrainian people rose up. The American people did not.

Let’s hope Mexico grabs the flame of liberty.


 

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2 Responses to “The Fight for Mexico isn't over: Allegations of fraud and vote-rigging”

  1. petron says:

    Yo MonkeyPants, Check this: <>“…it was learned that Felipe Calderon’s brother-in-law Diego Hildebrando Zavala wrote the vote-counting software, and it’s already been hacked. This new discovery is especially disturbing as whoever controls the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) computer systems can manipulate the vote process, control which votes get counted, which ones don’t, and what the final vote tally will be. The opportunity and temptation for fraud was therefore in the hands of the declared winner’s close family member and ally with every reason to believe he’d take full advantage.”<>http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2006/07/10/p9307I haven’t been able to verify this but if it’s true, Mexico is as fucked as the US. Especially so when considering one of the companies (Diebold) that makes electronic voting machines in the US has a CEO that says shit like this: <>“I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year”<>http://www.wanttoknow.info/031109nytimesIt’s all one big dirty pool of rotten politics north and south of the border.

  2. Vemrion says:

    petron: I agree, the electoral situation is looking really bad. It’s probably not a coincidence that there have been a lot of close elections lately — especially in countries with electronic voting machines. Blackbox voting makes it all too easy to simply add a few more votes so that the neocons can squeak out a victory. I’m really worried about November 2006. How can we be sure our votes are being counted?

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