How do you expect someone to feel when they have been robbed?
"Mexico vote result challenged" by Adriana Gomez Licon | Associated Press, July 08, 2012
MEXICO CITY — Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he will file a formal legal challenge this week to the vote count in Mexico’s presidential election.
The electoral authority issued final results Friday showing that former ruling party candidate Enrique Pena Nieto won by a 6.6-percentage-point margin, almost exactly the same lead as a quick count gave him the night of the election.
The final count, which included a ballot-by-ballot recount at more than half of polling places, showed Pena Nieto getting 38.21 percent of votes in Sunday’s election. Lopez Obrador got 31.59 percent.
Lopez Obrador said the court challenge will be based on the allegation that Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, engaged in vote-buying that illegally tilted millions of votes. PRI officials deny the charge.
His supporters planned to take to the streets of Mexico City to protest the results.
Related: MEXICO IS HAVING THE LARGEST PROTEST THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN MEDIA BLACKED IT OUT
Globe didn't cover it. Must not want to give Americans any ideas.
‘‘Rivers of illicitly obtained money were used to buy millions of votes,’’ Lopez Obrador said. He said that the recount of ballots at over half of polling places had not been done as thoroughly as promised.
The final vote count must be certified in September by the Federal Electoral Tribunal.
The tribunal has declined to overturn previously contested elections, including a 2006 presidential vote that was far closer than Sunday’s.
Yeah, turns out this is the SECOND TIME Lopez Obrador has been RIPPED OFF!
Accusations of vote-buying began surfacing in June, but sharpened early last week as thousands of people rushed to grocery stores on the outskirts of Mexico City to redeem prepaid gift cards worth about $7.50. Many said they got the cards from PRI supporters before Sunday’s elections.
Lopez Obrador said millions of voters had received either pre-paid cards, cash, groceries, construction materials, or appliances.
Lopez Obrador led a street protest in 2006 to protest alleged fraud in the presidential elections of that year, which he narrowly lost to President Felipe Calderon.
But he said last week that his challenge of the results would be channeled through legal venues, like the electoral institute and courts.
‘‘We have acted and we will continue to act in a responsible way, adhering to the legal procedure. Nobody can say we are violating the law,’’ Lopez Obrador said.
Leonardo Valdes, the president of the Federal Electoral Institute, said he does not see grounds for overturning the results.
‘‘I do not see any justification for rejecting the entirety of the election results,’’ Valdes said. ‘‘Rejecting the results would be like rejecting the effort of those 50 million voters.’’
However, he said the institute, Mexico’s chief electoral watchdog agency, had begun an investigation into the gift cards, and had requested that the PRI and the grocery store chain that had the cards supply data.
In an interview with the paper Excelsior, Calderon said ‘‘electoral authorities have an obligation, of course, to give us an answer’’ about the allegations, adding ‘‘what we need, in any case, are legal and institutional reforms, so that this kind of accusations don’t arise again.’’
Giving away such gifts is not illegal under Mexican electoral law, as long as the expense is reported to electoral authorities.
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Related: Irregularities reveal Mexico's election far from fair
My status quo, corporate narrative called a newspaper does not care.
Mexican Time Machine
Sure must feel that way to Mexicans.
Mexico’s old ruling party falling short of majority in Congress
Would have been to brazen a rig job.
Globe did cover this protest:
"Thousands protest Mexico election" Associated Press, July 23, 2012
MEXICO CITY — Thousands marched through Mexico City’s center Sunday to protest what they called the ‘‘imposition’’ of the candidate of the old ruling party as the country’s new president.
Protesters carried signs accusing the presumed president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto, of electoral fraud and Mexico television network Televisa of being a factory of lies.
Oh, they have the same type of TV we do.
Opponents say Peña Nieto’s party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, won the July 1 election through vote-buying and overspending, including paying major media outlets for favorable coverage.
Related: The New York Times Admits That Virtually Every Major News Organization Allows The News To Be Censored By Government Officials
And they are not even being paid.
‘‘Mexico didn’t vote for fraud,’’ said marcher Marlem Munoz, 26, who studies dentistry at Mexico’s National Autonomous University. “Mexico wants a country that is honest and democratic. What happened in the elections was a total mockery directed at the Mexican people.’’
Who doesn't?
The Institutional Revolutionary Party has vehemently denied the charges and Friday accused losing leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of trying to disqualify the entire electoral process with lies. Televisa also has denied charges of being paid for positive coverage.
Mexico City authorities did not release an official crowd estimate, but the march appeared to draw far fewer people than similar protests before the election with as many as 90,000 participants. A July 7 march, the first after election, drew 50,000. The events have attracted people from a new student movement, ‘‘I Am 132,’’ and leftist groups supporting Lopez Obrador.
I'm sick of the low-balling slander by the s*** corporate media.
The lower participation raises questions of whether Mexico’s university students have spawned a real movement in their demand for authentic democracy and an opening of Mexico’s media, or if it’s just part of the standard postelection protests in Mexico.
Looks to me like the corporate media is a sore loser shoveling this slop.
In 2006, after Lopez Obrador narrowly lost to President Felipe Calderon, he marshaled hundreds of thousands of supporters to block Mexico City’s main center for weeks.
And we read just as much about it as today's and yesterday's protests.
Lopez Obrador said he will not mobilize people to the streets this time. His choking of central Mexico City in 2006 was highly unpopular with everyday residents.
The final vote count must be certified in September by the Federal Electoral Tribunal.
The head said they will not overturn.
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Feel like I'm forgetting something:
"Four drug-smuggling tunnels equipped with lighting and ventilation — including one with a railcar system — have been discovered along the US-Mexico border in less than a week, the latest signs that cartels are building sophisticated passages to escape heightened detection above ground."
All over marijuana?
"Wanted US fugitive captured in Cancun" July 15, 2012
MEXICO CITY — One of the most-wanted American fugitives has been caught in the Mexican resort city of Cancun, the US Marshals Service said Saturday. Vincent Legrend Walters was captured Friday and is being held on an extradition request. Walters faces murder charges in the 1988 death of a woman kidnapped in California as part of a drug deal, as well as weapons and drug charges. He apparently was living under an assumed name and working at the Cancun airport at the time of his arrest. He had been on the run for 24 years."
Also see: New Bedford signs trade agreement with Mexican port
At least someone is a winner.
