Mexico's elections
Mexico's elections
A nation awaits
Jul 13th 2006 MEXICO CITY
From The Economist print edition
With court challenges under way, a clear winner looks unlikely before September
AP
ON JULY 12th demonstrations in support of Andrés Manuel López Obrador swept Mexico. But they were not what the presidential candidate of the centre-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) had hoped for in his last-ditch bid to be proclaimed the victor.
Although Mr López Obrador has called for a massive rally in Mexico City on July 16th in protest against alleged fraud in July 2nd's election, the gatherings around the country have so far attracted protesters only in the hundreds, and the thousands, rather than the hundreds of thousands.
According to the final official count by Mexico's independent Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), Felipe Calderón, the candidate of President Vicente Fox's centre-right National Action Party (PAN), pipped Mr López Obrador to the post by just 0.58%, or 244,000 votes.
Although Mexico City's former mayor had been ahead for much of the count, he fell behind as late results from states supporting Mr Calderón came in. He is now contesting the vote.The final outcome rests with a special electoral court, known by its Spanish acronym, Trife, whose decision is final.
It will evaluate challenges to the count made by all three main parties. Mr López Obrador is disputing the count in 50,000 of the country's 130,000 polling stations; the PAN is contesting it in 1,500, and the PRI in 800.
Mr López Obrador is also challenging the vote on the ground that government intervention notably advertisements by Mr Fox lauding the government's achievements gave him anadvantage.
Although some of Mr López Obrador's challenges may be legitimate, he seems to be making some illegitimate ones. At a press conference on July 10th, he presented two videos allegedly showing irregularities, which now appear to be bogus.
One of them showed a man stuffing a ballot box. But it turned out that the man, who is a school teacher and the local electoral overseer, was transferring presidential ballots, which had mistakenly been placed in the legislative ballot box, to their correct place. The local PRD representative has confirmed that it was done correctly.
The Trife has until the end of August to make a decision about any alleged irregularities, and must announce its decision by September 6th. It islikely to take its full allotted time. Composed of seven independent judges,the court has broad powers, though these have never been used before in a presidential election. It can certainly order recounts, or even annul the vote, of specific polling stations, though it is not clear whether it could order a total recount or annul the election entirely.
According to Fernando Franco, a former Trife judge and now a professor at ITAM, a university in Mexico City, a failure by the court to declare the vote valid by the September 6th deadline would be tantamount to annulling the election.But, as Mr Franco notes, there is a presumption of validity. The court would have to find extraordinary evidence that the election was flawed to take such a step. This seems unlikely. No evidence of systematic irregularities has yet surfaced.
Some errors have been found in the overall tabulation of votes but, according to José Woldenberg, the respected head of the IFE during the 2000 elections, these are likely to cancel each other out without affecting the overall result. Independent EU observers said the IFE had been impartial.
Mr López Obrador's claim that Mr Fox is a traitor to democracy, is rooted in the president's persistent attempts to prevent him from even entering the race. But in ending seven decades of rule by PRI, Mr Fox is also regarded as one of the founders of Mexico's nascent democracy.
Mr López Obrador's legal case is hurt by the fact that his own party representatives signed off on the count in many of the polling stations where he is now challenging the vote. The former mayor is now insinuating that some of them may have been paid off. But in more than a quarter of the stations, the PRD did not even have a representative present.Mexico's financial world seems much more concerned with what happens after December 1st than with the short term. In the expectation that the current political crisis will be resolved by legal means, neither Standard & Poor'snor Fitch, two rating agencies, have changed their ratings of government bonds.
Although interest rates inched up at the most recent auction of government debt and most people expect the peso to fall, this is due as much to external factors (such as rising American interest rates) as to electoral uncertainties.
Meanwhile, the jittery Mexican stockmarket has been rising with every bit of good news for Mr Calderón, and falling with every sign that Mr López Obrador might still have a chance.In all probability the market will settle down as it, like the rest ofMexico, gets used to the long wait until September 6th. What is needed now is patience.
It is far from ideal that the final decision over who becomes Mexico's next president rests with the seven individuals who sit on theTrife rather than the millions of Mexicans who voted on July 2nd. But the court has established a track record of impartiality, ruling in favour of the three major parties in almost equal proportions over the past decade. Further, the court's judges are barred from any other government post tha tmight have been affected by their decisions for two years after their terms end. Six of the court's seven judges end their ten-year terms in October.
Regardless of how they rule, a large portion of the country is sure to beunhappy. But the 1996 reform that empowered the Trife as the final arbiter of any election is far superior to what came before, where a simple majority of the lower house of Congress sufficed to declare a vote valid.
A nation awaits
Jul 13th 2006 MEXICO CITY
From The Economist print edition
With court challenges under way, a clear winner looks unlikely before September
AP
ON JULY 12th demonstrations in support of Andrés Manuel López Obrador swept Mexico. But they were not what the presidential candidate of the centre-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) had hoped for in his last-ditch bid to be proclaimed the victor.
Although Mr López Obrador has called for a massive rally in Mexico City on July 16th in protest against alleged fraud in July 2nd's election, the gatherings around the country have so far attracted protesters only in the hundreds, and the thousands, rather than the hundreds of thousands.
According to the final official count by Mexico's independent Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), Felipe Calderón, the candidate of President Vicente Fox's centre-right National Action Party (PAN), pipped Mr López Obrador to the post by just 0.58%, or 244,000 votes.
Although Mexico City's former mayor had been ahead for much of the count, he fell behind as late results from states supporting Mr Calderón came in. He is now contesting the vote.The final outcome rests with a special electoral court, known by its Spanish acronym, Trife, whose decision is final.
It will evaluate challenges to the count made by all three main parties. Mr López Obrador is disputing the count in 50,000 of the country's 130,000 polling stations; the PAN is contesting it in 1,500, and the PRI in 800.
Mr López Obrador is also challenging the vote on the ground that government intervention notably advertisements by Mr Fox lauding the government's achievements gave him anadvantage.
Although some of Mr López Obrador's challenges may be legitimate, he seems to be making some illegitimate ones. At a press conference on July 10th, he presented two videos allegedly showing irregularities, which now appear to be bogus.
One of them showed a man stuffing a ballot box. But it turned out that the man, who is a school teacher and the local electoral overseer, was transferring presidential ballots, which had mistakenly been placed in the legislative ballot box, to their correct place. The local PRD representative has confirmed that it was done correctly.
The Trife has until the end of August to make a decision about any alleged irregularities, and must announce its decision by September 6th. It islikely to take its full allotted time. Composed of seven independent judges,the court has broad powers, though these have never been used before in a presidential election. It can certainly order recounts, or even annul the vote, of specific polling stations, though it is not clear whether it could order a total recount or annul the election entirely.
According to Fernando Franco, a former Trife judge and now a professor at ITAM, a university in Mexico City, a failure by the court to declare the vote valid by the September 6th deadline would be tantamount to annulling the election.But, as Mr Franco notes, there is a presumption of validity. The court would have to find extraordinary evidence that the election was flawed to take such a step. This seems unlikely. No evidence of systematic irregularities has yet surfaced.
Some errors have been found in the overall tabulation of votes but, according to José Woldenberg, the respected head of the IFE during the 2000 elections, these are likely to cancel each other out without affecting the overall result. Independent EU observers said the IFE had been impartial.
Mr López Obrador's claim that Mr Fox is a traitor to democracy, is rooted in the president's persistent attempts to prevent him from even entering the race. But in ending seven decades of rule by PRI, Mr Fox is also regarded as one of the founders of Mexico's nascent democracy.
Mr López Obrador's legal case is hurt by the fact that his own party representatives signed off on the count in many of the polling stations where he is now challenging the vote. The former mayor is now insinuating that some of them may have been paid off. But in more than a quarter of the stations, the PRD did not even have a representative present.Mexico's financial world seems much more concerned with what happens after December 1st than with the short term. In the expectation that the current political crisis will be resolved by legal means, neither Standard & Poor'snor Fitch, two rating agencies, have changed their ratings of government bonds.
Although interest rates inched up at the most recent auction of government debt and most people expect the peso to fall, this is due as much to external factors (such as rising American interest rates) as to electoral uncertainties.
Meanwhile, the jittery Mexican stockmarket has been rising with every bit of good news for Mr Calderón, and falling with every sign that Mr López Obrador might still have a chance.In all probability the market will settle down as it, like the rest ofMexico, gets used to the long wait until September 6th. What is needed now is patience.
It is far from ideal that the final decision over who becomes Mexico's next president rests with the seven individuals who sit on theTrife rather than the millions of Mexicans who voted on July 2nd. But the court has established a track record of impartiality, ruling in favour of the three major parties in almost equal proportions over the past decade. Further, the court's judges are barred from any other government post tha tmight have been affected by their decisions for two years after their terms end. Six of the court's seven judges end their ten-year terms in October.
Regardless of how they rule, a large portion of the country is sure to beunhappy. But the 1996 reform that empowered the Trife as the final arbiter of any election is far superior to what came before, where a simple majority of the lower house of Congress sufficed to declare a vote valid.
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