Mexican Court Rejects Full Recount
Mexico's electoral court has rejected the charges of widespread irregularities brought by the leftist loser, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The court did no make the final ruling on the winner yet. They have until September 6th to do so under Mexican law.
The seven judges voted unanimously to reject most of the legal complaints by left-wing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who said he was robbed of victory in the July 2 vote.
The judges, whose rulings are final and cannot be appealed, must declare a president-elect by September 6.
Lopez Obrador's supporters have paralyzed Mexico City with protests this month and he has vowed to make the country ungovernable if the court declares Calderon the winner of the most bitterly contested election in Mexico's modern history.
Calderon said he would not be rattled by protests. "I will assume my role as president if that's what the court decides," he said during an event for businesswomen. "I won't let something that's been decided by all the citizens be undermined by a few in a violent way."
The initial result showed Calderon, a former energy minister from the ruling National Action Party, won the election by 244,000 votes, or just 0.58 of a percentage point.
The judges fell short of formally naming Calderon the winner but they said there were only marginal changes to the original results after recounts and annulments at some of the most fiercely contested polling stations.
Leonel Castillo, president of the election tribunal, said Lopez Obrador's claims of huge fraud "turned out to be completely unfounded."
AMLO is not backing down on his threats to form a parallel government or to lead a resistance effort. There are signs that his support is starting to drop, however.
"It would be an abuse of the people's rights, a rupture of the constitutional order and a coup d'etat, which is offensive to millions of Mexicans," he told supporters on Sunday in Mexico City's central Zocalo square, where they have been camping overnight in a sit-in for almost a month.
But attendance at his mass rallies has dropped in the last two weeks and a campaign of blockading highways, government buildings and foreign banks appears to be losing steam.
The leftist, who has vowed to overhaul economic policies to put the poor first, insists he will not give up. Some 50 supporters marched through the Zocalo with a fake coffin marked "Democracy."
Frankly, the rallies were never quite as big as some press reports would have you believe according to Mark In Mexico. Still, the fact that AMLO is willing to ruin the economy of Mexico to seize power has been a very troubling sign.
World news | Gaius Monday, 28 August , 2006
By BubbaB, Tuesday, 29 August , 2006 @ 4:53 pm
Whaddya expect? He is a leftist…