The conservative candidate for the Mexican presidency, Felipe Calderon, says that a recount of about 9% of the ballots cast in the election shows that no serious or widespread fraud occurred. He says he expects the election court to declare him the winner. The leftist loser will not let it go, though and has promised to escalate his followers antics.
Calderon, who broke several days of silence in a bitter fight over the July 2 election result, said no serious irregularities had been found in the 9 percent of ballot boxes included in the recount, which ended on Sunday.
"Not one significant anomaly was found," Calderon said. "On the contrary, it ratifies … that we won the elections."
Mexico's top electoral court is studying the results to see if there was any evidence of the massive fraud alleged by the losing left-wing candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
It has to formally declare the winner by September 6 but Calderon said he hoped to get the nod in the next two weeks.
Lopez Obrador says the recount showed that tens of thousands of votes were miscounted or are simply missing from polling stations.
He wants all 41 million votes counted again and warned on Sunday he would extend a campaign of civil resistance if the court ruled in Calderon's favor to stop him taking office.
"The confrontation, the post-electoral crisis, is going to get worse," said Gerardo Fernandez, spokesman for Lopez Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD. "We have made clear we will not be pushed around."
A couple of things to keep in mind here. Although the percentage of the victory was close (about 0.58%) that is still 244,000 votes. The other thing is that if there had been widespread fraud, a 9% sample would have shown that in the results.
Don't expect logic or facts to deter AMLO, though. He'll destroy Mexico in order to be president.
