Free Republic

Mexico's presidential front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto has extended his big lead in the run-up to the July 1 election following a sharp drop in support for the ruling party candidate, an opinion poll showed on Monday. The voter survey by polling firm Buendia & Laredo for newspaper El Universal showed backing for Pena Nieto, candidate of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), at 41.6 percent, down from 42.5 percent in a poll published on March 26. However, due to a decline in the fortunes of Josefina Vazquez Mota, candidate of President Felipe Calderon's conservative National Action Party (PAN), Pena Nieto...

MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) -- Mexico ramped up security at its international airport, power plants and oil refineries on Friday, as leftists challenging a tight presidential election result threatened to intensify crippling protests.

While the U.S. Congress dithers over how best to stop illegal immigration, the Mexican people may have already decided the issue this past weekend. Mexicans went to the polls Sunday to pick a new president, only the second presidential election in the last 75 years that could be characterized as a truly free and democratic contest. The more conservative, free-trade-oriented candidate, Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party (PAN), appears to have eked out a slim victory with a few hundred thousand more votes than the leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Although Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City...

Mexico's centre-left presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said he will challenge the outcome of Sunday's presidential election. He spoke as the almost complete results gave a razor-thin victory to his conservative rival, Felipe Calderon. Mr Lopez Obrador said he would appeal to the courts, and urged his supporters to rally in Mexico City's main square. The results came after electoral officials worked around the clock to verify ballots from the 2 July poll.

MEXICO CITY — With more than 90% of an official recount concluded late Wednesday, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador held a slim lead over conservative Felipe Calderon in Mexico's fractious and unpredictable presidential election. The partial result was a surprising turnabout after two days of preliminary counts showed Calderon slightly ahead. The initial tally at the 131,000 polling places that began Sunday night was deemed too close to call. On Wednesday, officials undertook the final count based on a review of polling station reports. With 94% of the polling stations tallied, Lopez Obrador led Calderon by 0.73 percentage point, or...

Too long to post in a single thread, but a fascinating almost minute by minute recounting of last night and insight into Mexico's state and national election politics. Perhaps most interesting is his outlining of why Mexico probably has a much more fraud-resistant election system than we do: "9:58. Televisa is showing video of the process at the polls. When a Mexican voter enters the polls his voter ID card--with its picture and signature and hologram--is checked by one official with the list which shows a replica of each registered voter's card. Then the card is checked and held by...

Mexican politicians continuously demand more visas for their citizens, an expanded guest-worker program, and "regularization" of illegal aliens living north of the Rio Grande. While neglecting to mention that the United States admits nearly one million legal newcomers each year, they also fail to publicize: (1) the extremely high salaries they receive, often—in the case of federal and state legislators—more than their counterparts in developed nations that have substantially longer annual sessions, (2) the generous stipends that they grant themselves, including year-end aguinaldos and end-of-term bonuses of tens of thousands of dollars known as bonos de marcha, and (3) the...

LOS ANGELES - A potentially powerful expatriate voting bloc likely will have little effect on Mexico's presidential race because of the illegal status of many who live in the United States. Thousands of Mexican expatriates streamed into border towns Sunday to vote in their homeland's elections and others were allowed to cast absentee ballots for the first time. Still, many more were disenfranchised by their fear of crossing the border as undocumented residents. "I really wanted to vote, but I don't have papers so I couldn't go to Mexico" to get a voter card, said Adriana Lopez, 27, a housewife...

The reason why Mexico is having chilly relations with the United States because we are importing Mexico's poor and the American tapayer is paying for them. Mexico refused to do nothing about the corruption that is pervasive in all levels of government. There is a massive crime wave being committed more and more by Mexican nationals against American citizens. Could this also be another reason why there is a chill between Mexico and the United States?The author of the piece does not touch this.

(06-30) 04:00 PDT Cardenas, Mexico -- Gonzalo Rodriguez has an unenviable task as the boss of a major oil field -- ripping out a large part of the pumping and compressing machinery that collects the output from scores of wells. "Unfortunately, we don't need this capacity anymore," he said. "This isn't like the old days, and they aren't coming back." Like much of Mexico's giant oil production apparatus, this area, known as the Bellota oil field, is in an apparently unstoppable decline. At current extraction rates, the nation has only 10 years of proven oil reserves remaining. And as Mexico...

It is perhaps the most significant potential threat to U.S. national security with regards to our southern neighbor since Poncho Villa raided a U.S. border town in 1916. Mexico will be holding its presidential election on July 2, which will determine whether Mexico, with its nearly 2,000 mile border with the U.S., joins an emerging anti-American Marxist alliance in Latin America. It will decide whether Mexico follows Venezuela's example in becoming a state sponsor of terrorism with a potential pool of 12-20 million illegal immigrant recruits already inside our borders, a couple of million of whom recently conducted mass demonstrations...

Mexico leftist holds 6-point presidential poll lead Thu Jan 26, 2006 11:01 AM ET (Recasts; adds details, background) By Greg Brosnan MEXICO CITY, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Mexican leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's lead over his nearest rival has been halved to six points since November, according to poll results released on Thursday. The survey by daily newspaper El Universal gave Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, 33 percent support, with Felipe Calderon of the ruling National Action Party in second place with 27 percent. In its last poll in November, El Universal had Lopez Obrador...

ACAPULCO, Mexico -- What was supposed to be a tight state election turned into a rout for the Democratic Revolution Party, boosting Mexico's main leftist party's chances for the presidency in 2006. Running behind former Acapulco Mayor Zeferino Torreblanca, the party on Sunday ended 76 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero. With 92 percent of the vote counted, Torreblanca had a 55 to 42 percent lead over the PRI's Hector Astudillo - embarrassing several respected polling companies who had the men in a statistical tie before the election. Thousands...

Migrants seek voice in Mexico politics By Tessie BordenRepublic Mexico City BureauJan. 25, 2003 MEXICO CITY - As their numbers and influence grow, Mexican migrants in the United States are building the political muscle to demand a say in politics back home.Unlike Americans abroad, millions of Mexicans who live in the United States are not allowed to vote absentee in Mexico elections or be elected to office even though they voluntarily sent more than $10 billion home last year. Remittances are second only to oil in Mexico's sources of income. Part of the money goes to hometown governments to pay...