NOT since 1910, when another controversial election sparked a revolution, has Mexico been so fraught with political tension.
The largest demonstrations in our history are daily proof that millions of Mexicans want a full accounting of last month’s presidential election. My opponent, Felipe Calderón, currently holds a razor-thin lead of 243,000 votes out of 41 million cast, but Mexicans are still waiting for a president to be declared.
Unfortunately, the electoral tribunal responsible for ratifying the election results thwarted the wishes of many Mexicans and refused to approve a nationwide recount. Instead, their narrow ruling last Saturday allows for ballot boxes in only about 9 percent of polling places to be opened and reviewed.
This is simply insufficient for a national election where the margin was less than one percentage point — and where the tribunal itself acknowledged evidence of arithmetic mistakes and fraud, noting that there were errors at nearly 12,000 polling stations in 26 states.
It’s worth reviewing the history of this election. For months, voters were subjected to a campaign of fear. President Vicente Fox, who backed Mr. Calderón, told Mexicans to change the rider, but not the horse — a clear rebuke to the social policies to help the poor and disenfranchised that were at the heart of my campaign. Business groups spent millions of dollars in television and radio advertising that warned of an economic crisis were I to win.
Long on smoke, but short on substance. He does nothing in the article (IMO), to justify the Algorification of this election (of course, neither did his hero, Al Gore).
However, I was fascinated by this paragraph, buried deep in the article:After all, our aim is to strengthen, not damage, Mexico’s institutions, to force them to adopt greater transparency. Mexico’s credibility in the world will only increase if we clarify the results of this election.
It sounds to me as though Mexico has made its choice and clarified the election results within the limits of its laws (shades of FloriDUH, 2000!). It is Mr. Obrador who doesn't seem to be able to accept "No!" for an answer!!!
Having shadowed Lopez Obrador's campaign from the inside for several months, I find it severely disappointing to see the Free Republic mindlessly follow the characterization of AMLO presented by the liberal mass media and Felipe Calderon's PR machine.
AMLO is no Chavez. He plans to curb the unions of Pemex and other public bureaucracies-- following Reagan's example-- and to drastically reduce public debt, big government, wasteful government spending and excessive public salaries, entitlements and special interests. If there is any American politician to whom he best compares, it is Kentucky's Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher, who has enacted similar measures there.
Is this a "leftist?"
Rogelio de la O, who translated the above, has represented international companies in Mexico, ranging from Ford to Siemens, for more than two decades. The AMLO/de la O economic plan is centered in bringing the stability that such companies require to Mexico, in place of rising public debts and crumbling infrastructure.
Mr. de la O once supported Vincente Fox-- before seeing him adopt tax-and-spend policies, and cave to the same special interests who now support Felipe Calderon. Mr. Calerdon is in no way a "pro-business" candidate unless "pro-business" suddenly means supporting public welfare for special interests and ignoring the needs of international companies-- as Mexico's manufacturing sector continues to decline (20% in the last half-decade).
In that same time, an unknown number of Mexicans-- certainly in the millions-- have fled the the social and economic instability of Mexico, to the soil of the United States, seeking the democracy and freedom Mexico has failed to achieve. We would do well to remember the example of Eastern Germany, and that the economic cost of this exodus to the United States, now in the billions per year, and its strain upon our resources.
The "transparency" phrasing above reflects a sincere concern of AMLO, de la O, and many within his campaign and in the United States. Far from "just smoke," the evidence of irregularity and fraud in the July 2nd election extends far beyond what is presented above.
The first "recount"-- more a "reopening" -- of some 4,700+ ballot boxes initially seemed to reveal many more votes for AMLO, and resulted in the Calderon's projected margin being revised to less than 240,000 votes.
In the following weeks, the IFE has declared that the this reopening of ballot boxes took votes away from both candidates-- but, oddly, has not revised the 240,000 vote margin. Neither have they presented transparent evidence of the count to substantiate its validity, rather, they have chosen to claim that "the validity of the process is not questionable, because the polling places were overseen by citizens, randomly selected."
Would we trust "randomly selected" citizens to oversee the polling process in the US? How does random selection prevent a Democratic or Republican partisan-- or for that matter, a criminal or drug dealer, from assuming such a position of authority, and abusing it?
The long and complex record of local polling on July 2nd reveals the horrible error of such a process. The tabulation sheets placed outside polling places do not match those places on top of ballot boxes, and those do not match the sheets inside. In hundreds of polling places, more than a thousand votes are recording-- while the number of ballots was limited at 750. In various regions, numerous outlying polling stations reporting to a central station report the exact same number of votes for each candidate-- an impossibility that suggests widespread and co-ordinated fraud.
In both the initial computerized count referred to as the "PREP," and the later actual count, we see an unusual and unlikely statistical pattern-- as the alleged "count" proceeds, Calderon gains more and more votes with increasing speed-- and AMLO loses votes with exactly the same speed-- while, oddly, other candidates retain steady percentages of the vote, without variation. This should not happen.
Even more oddly, looking at both counts, they follow the exact same pattern: even minute-by-minute, the IFE reported that both candidates gained (or lost) the same percentage of votes in each "count." Yet the order of the count-- the specific order of reporting stations-- is not the same in each count. The pattern of results is not possible under such conditions.
And so on and so on. When do we recognize a farce as a farse?
The international press has attacted the AMLO administration-- and its claims-- as weak and unsubstantive, n the language provided them by Caldron's camp-- harping on the lack of a clear picture. What do they expect amid the fog of war?
As an American living amid them, equally suspicious, with more sympathy for the conservatism of the right than the revolutionary claims of the left, I have seen a far different reality. AMLO's camp was confused and in despair in the days from July 2nd to July 5th; unsure of what had occurred, unable to comprehend their reported loss in the face of their own polls and evidence, cautious of declaring or believing the claim of fraud without clearer evidence, and, most of all, out of nationalistic pride and hope, unwilling to believe that the institutions of the IFE, could have have been compromised to their core.
Bethany McLean, writing for Fortune, once had similar doubts about the reality of ENRON, as did many Americans. Weeks ago, I shared her example with the AMLO administration, though they still hesitate to come to the conclusion which seem obvious to me.
Mexico is, sadly, not the same as the United States. Its electoral officials, sadly, come under influences-- political and financial, and not the least amid them, the threat of violence-- uncommon in the United States. The IFE's election software was provided by Felipe Calderons' brother-in-law, and its code, like the entire process of the election, hides behind a cloak of darkness and obscurity?
What more do we need to know? Have we, as a nation, become too weak to demand the truth, and the light of day? Shall we quietly and timidly concede, in the face of tyranny and deception? For today, the true results of the July 2nd elections hide behind a curtain of darkness and obscurity, as dark and threatening in its iron obscurity as the one which once covered Eastern Europe a half-century ago.
It is not just the character of Mexico which is at stake today, but the character and meaning of America, and the future of democracy. We cannot possibly hope to support and secure democracy a world away, on the soil of Iraq and Lebanon, if we neglect to oppose and dictatorship on our southernmost border.
The liberal mass media-- whose agents have been well paid by Mr. Calderon-- have well accomplished the spread of the lie they have been paid to spread, that Mr. Calderon is a "conservative" and in favour of the interests of businesses and democracy.
Mr. Calderon is not. His history and his conduct reveal that he is an authoritarian dictator who favors only those who pay him. If the coup he has attempted is allowed to succeed, Mexico with continue its descent into economic depression and totalitarianism, and America and democracy will pay the high price of ignoring dictatorship upon our borders.
Now is the time for action. Now is the time for America to renew its commitments to democracy and to freedom. Now is the time for all Americans to oppose fraud, deception, and dictatorship on our southern border.
Kenneth Thomas Bowling Green, KY/
Mexico City, D.F.