Condemning electoral fraud - unless it's Mexican

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Pic by Rafael Stedie

If the news of election shenanigans had been from Russia or Iran, our media headlines would be screaming fraud. As Counterpunch's Paul Imison reports,Washington has quickly recognised Mexico's election result unlike its condemnation of recent elections in Russia. Although there is no immediate prospect of a return to the mass protests of 2006 following that disputed election, it's not just defeated left candidate Lopez Obrador condemning massive fraud.

The PRI’s Enrique Peña Nieto is officially the president-elect. Despite evidence gathered by both defeated leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) and the #YoSoy132 pro-democracy movement to show that vote-buying, threats and ballot-tampering were widespread on July 1, he will likely remain so – in large part thanks to the Federal Electoral Institute's (IFE) refusal to condemn what AMLO’s Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) has called “the dirtiest election in Mexico’s history.”

For the record, the official count (after the partial recount) by IFE goes like this: Enrique Peña Nieto with 38.21% (19.2 million votes), AMLO with 31.59% (15.9 million votes) and Josefina Vazquez Mota of the incumbent PAN with 25.41% (12.3 million votes).

Yesterday AMLO gave his final word (for now) on the election result, presenting 500 pages’ worth of evidence including 300 videos and 400 citizen testimonies to the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary (TEPJF), along with a claim that the PRI spent some US$297 million on Peña Nieto’s campaign, vastly exceeding IFE’s official cap of $25 million.

El Pais has told Mexico's left to dump Lopez Obrador for his refusal to accept the election result, tainted by mass bribery, paid-or news coverage favouring 'winner' Pena Nieto and fixed pre-election polls.As Mexico and Gulf reporter writes:

Spain's El País, the most influential newspaper in the country and one of the most respected in Europe, today called defeated PRD candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador a poor loser and a "dead weight" on his leftist Democratic Revolution Party.

The lead editorial was published in Madrid under the title "Obrador es un lastre." Lastre means a burden or weight.

El País wrote that there is "no evidence of widespread irregularities" in the July 1 election. Mexico's federal electoral authority says PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto won by more than 3.3 million votes, or 6.62% of the total cast.

AMLO hits back

Referring to the severe economic woes which the once great imperial power is now facing (including 25% unemployment), López Obrador told the prestigious paper, "It would be better to focus on your own responsibility in the disaster which is now Spain." 

Massive vote buying by 'winners' of Mexican elections

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The Mexican elections of 2012, like those of 2006, have been marred by violations including the buying of media coverage by the alleged victors the PRI, and the mass buying of voters with pre-paid gift cards. The leftist PRD opponent Andres Manuael Lopez Obrador (AMLO) has demanded a full recount. For months polls in the mainstream media, which has been revealed to have received millions in funding from the PRI, gave new president elect Enrique Pena Nieto 20 point leads over his main opponent. Yet on the night the victory was much narrower, at 7%. The initial vote count gave Pena Nieto 38.15% and Lopez Obrador 31.64% of the vote. This is highly suspicious. Mexicans have been had - yet again. But, we can see, that the US and other western governments have rushed to congratulate Pena Nieto. This result was written before the election took place - it is the result that the US and Mexican elite wanted. In 2006 AMLO was much criticised for protesting electoral fraud for months after the result, bringing hundreds of thousands onto the street. The view seems to be that acquiescing in fraud is preferable to 'instability'. I wonder how that scenario would run if it was implemented in Europe or the US - of course, it was carried out in the US in 2000. I feel sad and angry for Mexicans, as yet again their 'democracy' has been bought.

For more on the story from the Associated Press