Mexico edges closer to presidential ruling

In the days following Mexico's July 2 presidential election, Mexicans of all political parties marveled at the democracy on display, including mass demonstrations calling for a recount of the still-disputed race, the closest in the nation's history.

But now that Mexico's top electoral court rejected allegations of massive fraud by leftist leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador – and Mr. Obrador has refused to accept the ruling that will probably hand conservative Felipe Calderón the presidency – many say they are concerned about the dispute's impact on democratic dialogue in a country that emerged from one-party authoritarian rule just six years ago.

Obrador, who has said the election was stolen, has compared a Calderón victory to a "coup d'etat," and has called for a national convention Sept. 16, Mexico's Independence Day. He says on that day, he will ask supporters whether he should be declared the "alternative" president-elect of the country.

"Never more will we accept that an illegal and illegitimate government is installed in our country," he told thousands gathered Monday in the Zocalo, Mexico City's main square.

It is worrisome rhetoric, say some. "We don't have trust in our system as Americans do," says Rafael Fernández de Castro, chairman of the international studies program at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM). "Mexicans have been following an institutional process. Now we are starting to step into new territory ... with an opposition that is moving outside of the institutional process."

"A lot of people don't feel like they belong in the system," he adds.

Obrador, who championed the country's poor and lost by 0.6 percent, alleged irregularities at more than half the country's polling stations. He demanded a vote-by-vote recount of 41 million ballots that were cast July 2. The electoral court rejected that request earlier this month, ordering a review of just 9 percent of polling places.

In addition to rejecting Obrador's claims of widespread fraud, the court announced that its recount cut Calderón's 240,000-vote lead by some 4,000 votes. But the justices finished without formally certifying Calderón, of President Vicente Fox's National Action Party (PAN), as the winner. They must declare a president-elect by Sept. 6.

"I don't think López Obrador has a chance in a thousand that the electoral court will certify him as winner or annul the election," says Todd Eisenstadt, an expert on Mexico's electoral court at American University in Washington. "The door seems to be closing on [any chance] that he'll be declared president in 2006."

The 2006 election revealed class and geographic divisions in Mexico. The PAN and Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) split the nation's 31 states and one federal district in half. Calderón, a free-trade advocate who has said he would remain a strong US ally, got more support in the industrial north, while Obrador won Mexico City and the rural states in the south.

Page: 1 | 2