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"Is he [Cuauhtemoc Cardenas] leaning towards advocating a nationwide recount? Or is he more or less simply saying that whatever TRIFE says regarding the recounts should be embraced by Mexicans?"

I think the key phrase within Cuauhtemoc Cardenas's statement is "if it it is what gives us certainty." I take this to mean very clearly that there are recounts which do give us certainty and recounts which do not give us certainty. According to the Electoral Tribunal's interpretation of Mexico's Electoral Law, a hand recount of ballots is only required whenever the external evidence warrants it. By external evidence they refer to such things as: the comparison between the numbers of voters who signed the roll as casting ballots on election day with the number of votes recorded (is there a significant discrepancy between the two numbers, especially if the number of votes recorded is greater than the number signing the roll?); the possibility that the returns show unusual numbers of "null votes" (whether too high or too low); the existence of complaints made by the party representatives on hand who witnessed the counting of ballots and who only signed the voting report, i.e. the Acta, under protest; the existence of a discrepancy in the reporting of the numbers between the preliminary and official counts; visible recognition of damage to or a lack of clarity in the voting report; a correlation between lower vote totals for a particular candidate within an electoral district and the absence of party representatives for that candidate being on hand to act as witnesses to the counting of the ballots; and the possibility that approved precinct representatives designated to serve at a particular precinct before the election were prevented from doing so for reasons other than of their own inability or choice to serve. I have seen all of these reasons stated as sufficient to justify a hand recount within a precinct, and I imagine there must be others, but what I think Cuauhtemoc Cardenas is pointing out is that, if AMLO and his representatives could not present evidence of this kind for more than 9.07% of the casillas in the country, do they really have a case to make that going any farther clears up uncertainties? After all, Cardenas did distinguish between recounts that do give certainty and recounts which don't AND he said that a "fondness for the law" should be the way to settle the dispute.

I'm just acting on the basis of logic in interpreting his statements because what I really think is going on here is a "soft sell" from Cuauhtemoc Cardenas in front of the public, which accounts for some of the ambiguities you are pointing out, coupled with a "hard sell" behind the scenes, in discussions with PRD activists. And on that point, Cardenas was very clear. He sees the PRD as potentially losing real gains they have made.

So for what it's worth, that is my take.

Hi Saint. I hope your weekend's being good to you. Anyhow, it would seem that Cuauhtemoc's hard sell behind the scenes, trying to get PRD folks to back down, is having an impact. There's a whopping 3 digit sum marching to the Basilica de Guadalupe in Mexico City right now:

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/369794.html

To put this crowd of 700 into perspective, Mexico has at least 4 or 5 times that many people straddle in to visit the Teotihuacan pyramid dozens of miles North of there on any given publicly accessible day, even though it's not symbolic of a widely accepted religion like the Basilica is.