La Jornada editorial, Tuesday 3 July 2012
The electoral process should have complete and reliable results yesterday with an indisputable winner of the presidential race is instead a time of waiting and worrying has been contaminated by institutional misconduct, civil and media.
To begin, the election was preceded by a less pronounced bias of the media, especially electronic ones, which led to the making of a presidential candidate based on the inordinate power of the television screen on public opinion. This process is not limited to the application, for political purposes, of marketing and traditional commercial advertising, but included campaigns of disqualification and possible distortion of those opposing the PRI candidate, and a manifest inequity of information much like a lock. Another aspect of this construction of the candidacy of Enrique Peña Nieto was the development of hundreds or thousands of surveys clearly divorced from reality.
Already in the phase of the campaign proper, the Institutional Revolutionary Party used its arsenal of traditional maneuvers electoral manipulation and distortion: the vote buying and coercion, intimidation and assault the supporters of other institutes and policy prescriptions and crushing a waste of money on advertising, logistics and distribution of goods or cash for citizen wills. Under such undesirable practices and criminal activity, both the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) and the Electoral Tribunal of Judicial Power of the Federation (TEPJF) behaved with a tolerance close to the omission of its powers and obligations.
As Sunday's allegations of irregularities proliferated, most repeatedly referred to the purchase of votes, but the robbery was by ballot box, as well as attacks against citizens of different parties which lead Peña Nieto and alleged tampering of electoral stationery by PRI-operators, however, both the electoral and judicial officials as spokespersons for the media insisted on portraying a clean and peaceful elections.
Not being one thing or the other, the choice was, however, a notable virtue: the high participation and the emergence of a civic interest which restored the link to the polls, and with politics in general, large sectors of the population . The most notable expression of this positive phenomenon is the rise-in the heat of campaigns, student and youth movement # YoSoy132, which was to upset a vast linchpin to the miseries of a political regime which involves no legal powers , powers such as electronic media and, by now, the polling agencies that seem more concerned about electoral trends induced by portraying.
At the end of the day, when the Preliminary Electoral Results Program (PREP) was computed for less than 10 percent of the polling, the president of the IFE, Leonardo Valdés Zurita, went on national television to announce the results of a quick poll that differ significantly from the numbers of PREP, but converge with those of the contested polls of public opinion. Immediately after the incumbent head of the Federal Executive, Felipe Calderon, made use of the national media to proclaim the triumph of Peña Nieto. All with the backdrop of media who did not hesitate to proclaim the winning candidate PRI, which then gave a speech as president-elect.
These institutional and informational distortions are regrettable in so far as to vitiate the electoral process and introduce it to uncertainty and suspicion. In a competitive scenario, in effect, declare winners when there are no results is foolhardy and may irreparably damage the election as a whole.
Meanwhile, presidential candidate of the left (AMLO) announced that he will await the total count of the votes to take a stand and called for calm and civility to his followers. It can not be certain, therefore, the outcome of electoral uncertainty that developed, however, the systematic manipulation of television, in the continued interference of the Calderon administration, the pusillanimity of the electoral authorities and the application of the traditional bad epileptic arts of the PRI.
The truth is that it has again put the country in a context of lack of credibility that could lead to uncontrollable circumstances or six years of a diminished government legitimacy. Hopefully none of these perspectives is realized and that, conversely, the total count of the votes and the rapid resolution of challenges to give certainty about the meaning of popular verdict delivered yesterday at the polls.
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