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 Editorials | Opinions | July 2006 
Truth in Elections
 The Nation
| | Party of the Democratic Revolution presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador arrives at a rally by thousands of supporters in the Zocalo in Mexico City, Mexico, Saturday, July 8, 2006. (Erich Schlegel/MCT) |
The fate of Mexico is undetermined at this hour, but this much we know: Don't take at face value what you read in the leading American newspapers about Mexico's cliffhanger election outcome. Their candidate is the candidate of multinational business - Felipe Calderón - who supposedly won the presidential election by 240,000 votes out of 41 million. Keep in mind that nearly 65 percent of Mexican voters essentially voted against Calderón and his pro-globalization, pro-NAFTA agenda by voting for someone else.
The leading opponent - Andrés Manuel López Obrador - came in second and charges he was robbed. The most influential papers in America - the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal - have already warned that Obrador is a dangerous character. They depict a "firebrand" and "messianic" leader of the unwashed poor, a potentially violent "populist" who might destabilize the country. There is a long tradition in these newspapers of warning American readers about the rise of non-establishment politicians in Mexico and Latin America. The CIA has devoted enormous energy over the years to preventing such a calamity for US interests (oil, banking, minerals - you name it.)
So keep an open mind about whether Obrador's charges of election fraud are substantive or, as the media suggest, farfetched. In recent decades, Mexico's ruling class has been notorious, even bloody, about fixing elections. The presidency was effectively stolen from a left-wing challenger back in 1988 to install Salinas, much admired by Wall Street as a "modern reformer." He embraced NAFTA and US finances but was discredited and deeply corrupt. (He had to flee the country afterward but was taken in by his American friends, including the Wall Street Journal, which put him on the Dow Jones board.)
On occasion, a promising politician's candidacy has even been cut short by murder. There were two in the run-up to the 1994 election: Luis Donaldo Colosio and Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu.
What's most disgusting in the current coverage is the similarity to an American election scam. Newsies are pounding home the same message for Obrador that they used to bully Al Gore back in 2000: Don't be a sore loser. Fold your tent and accept defeat, for the sake of stability, for the good health of democracy. Remember Florida? If the votes had been fairly, thoroughly recounted there in 2000, Gore would be the "next President."
In Mexico, Obrador asks for a full recount of the national vote - a reasonable demand, given what's already known - but this is dismissed as irrational, even unpatriotic. So far he is standing his ground, but we can expect the respectable pressures to intensify against him. Establishment influentials from the North will warn that Mexico's future prosperity could be damaged if US investors "lose confidence." The specter of small-d democratic protest will be described as an impediment to Calderón's governing the entire country. Indeed, it might be.
I am not anticipating an Obrador triumph, but surely he is right to demand a full accounting of the real results. In any event, the Mexican people have turned a big corner in their long struggle to achieve a genuine voice in a self-governing democracy. This election, even if the common people fall short of full justice, represents a significant advance. (If only the American people could discover the same spirit of insurgency.)
If Americans were not kept in ignorance by their own leaders and media, they might recognize their self-interest is directly involved. They would understand why, instead of fearing the popular aspirations of ordinary Mexicans, ordinary Americans should be standing with them. |
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