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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | July 2006 
Calderon Urges Calm, Leftist Urges Recount
 Alistair Bell - Reuters
| | Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party, (PRD), holds documents in his hands as he speaks during a news conference at his headquarters office in Mexico City, Mexico, Tuesday, July 11, 2006. A legal team for Lopez Obrador finished handing over boxes of videos, documents and recordings it said showed that fraud and illegal campaigning gave Calderon a razor-thin advantage of fewer than 244,000 votes. (AP/Eduardo Verdugo) |
Mexico City - The conservative winner of Mexico's contested presidential election urged calm on Tuesday ahead of street protests led by his leftist rival, who demanded a recount and said the vote could be nullified.
Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who says last week's vote count was manipulated in favor of ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon, showed reporters videos of alleged ballot stuffing.
He also suggested some of his party representatives may have been bribed and repeated a demand for a complete recount.
"If they won, why are they afraid of a recount," he asked in a television interview. "I won the election without a doubt."
Calderon asked Lopez Obrador's supporters to remain peaceful as they come from around the country to congregate in the capital later this week to back the leftist's claim.
"I call on all the political players to behave with strict adherence to our laws and institutions and on the people to avoid any kind of provocation," Calderon told journalists.
Lopez Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City, rallied more than 100,000 people in the capital's Zocalo square last weekend to protest what he said was fraud in the election, which Calderon won by less than a percentage point.
That rally was peaceful and the leftist has persistently said his protests will not be violent. He has asked a special electoral court to change the election result.
The electoral court, made up of seven magistrates, must rule on Lopez Obrador's objections to the election result by August 31 and declare an election winner by September 6.
"If the anomalies they are going to find prevent the election's validity, the procedure would be to cancel the election," Lopez Obrador said.
The next president takes over from President Vicente Fox, from Calderon's party, on December 1.
TRANSITION TEAM
Calderon, a former energy minister, said he won fair and square and is already acting as if he were president-elect, naming two senior aides to head his transition team.
"We won the election at the polls with the peaceful participation of millions and millions of Mexicans. That's why I invite my supporters to stay calm," he said.
Calderon said election campaign adviser Juan Camilo Mourino would head his transition team and Josefina Vazquez Mota, a former minister for welfare programs, would be in charge of relations with other parties.
With about 206 seats, Calderon's National Action Party will be the biggest party in the 500-member lower house of Congress but will lack an absolute majority.
If the court confirms him as president, he is expected to win support from the formerly ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party to try to pass economic reforms.
Calderon says he will form a coalition government if need be but ruled out giving cabinet posts to the opposition without first agreeing on a plan of government action.
"I am willing to share the responsibilities of public office if that is necessary to reach a legislative majority, but the main point is to have a government program," he said.
(Additional reporting by Kieran Murray) |
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