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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | August 2006 
No End Seen to Mexican Vote Dispute from Recount
 Lorraine Orlandi - Reuters
| | Supporters of Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador protest with their hands tied and their mouths covered outside of the Attorney General's Office against alleged fraud during the last July 2 elections in Mexico City, Mexico on Thursday Aug. 10, 2006. As officials continued a partial recount of votes in the disputed July 2 presidential elections, supporters of Lopez Obrador mainained their peaceful protests. The sign at right reads 'Guilty of Defending Democracy'. (AP/Marco Ugarte) |
Mexican electoral officials, monitored by judges, painstakingly tallied votes from a presidential election on Thursday in a partial recount that appeared unlikely to resolve a dispute over fraud claims.
Conservative Felipe Calderon, who won the July 2 vote by a tiny margin, said the recount of votes from 9 percent of polling stations was proving he won the election fairly.
But the official result of the new count is unlikely to be known until the weekend and the party of leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said it would not be satisfied until all 41 million votes cast are tallied again.
Mexico has been split, often along class lines, by the election, which pitted pro-U.S. Calderon against anti-poverty crusader Lopez Obrador.
Calderon, a lawyer who was educated at Harvard, said this week's recount of some 4 million votes that was ordered by a court confirmed the original result.
"The recount being carried out today shows that the people counted the votes properly on July 2," Calderon told a meeting of business executives.
But Jesus Ortega, Lopez Obrador's campaign manager, said the recount had produced evidence of big irregularities, which would give votes to the leftist when they were fixed.
Mexico's top electoral court last weekend turned down a request from the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution to count all the votes again, ordering instead a recount of votes in some of the most disputed electoral districts.
STREET PROTESTS
Thousands of Lopez Obrador's supporters have crippled the capital's center with huge sit-ins to protest what they say was tampering with the vote result. Leftists blocked access to the main offices of foreign banks in Mexico on Wednesday.
"The damage being done by the protests in Mexico City proves that not only did the people count properly on July 2 but they also made the right choice for president," Calderon said.
A small group of protesters demonstrated outside an annex of the Finance Ministry but failed to dissuade employees from entering the building.
About 100 demonstrators gave up on an attempt to march on the city's airport when police there went on alert.
Conservatives say the fact that some 1 million private citizens staffed polling stations on election day helped avoid vote rigging by any one party. European Union observers say there was no major fraud.
Calderon, a former energy minister, won the voting by 0.58 of a percentage point, or 244,000 votes, but the left says electoral officials deliberately counted fewer votes for Lopez Obrador and also stole ballot papers.
Two soldiers and a judge stood over an election worker recounting votes at an office in the south of Mexico City. Every vote was counted out in a loud voice.
Initial results from the recount showed Lopez Obrador picking up handfuls of votes in some electoral districts, the Mexican media said, but it was unclear if the overall pattern favored him.
Ricardo Monreal, a top legal aide to Lopez Obrador, said the leftist would not recognize the partial recount result as definitive.
"We said we'd take part (in the recount), although unwillingly, but there is no way we will recognize the election result based on this," he said.
Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, says he will lift millions of people out of poverty if he becomes president on December 1.
Favored by financial markets, Calderon promises more of the macro-economic stability earned under conservative President Vicente Fox.
The court which ordered the recount must resolve all disputes surrounding the election by the end of the month and announce the president-elect by September 6. |
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