Counter Punch: Paul Imison. Mexico City. Mexico could be forgiven for partying like it’s 2006. Following the election on Sunday, where Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate Enrique Peña Nieto appeared to win the presidency by a 6.5% margin over leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), the result is being hotly contested. Just as in 2006, when he lost by a mere 0.56% to Felipe “drug warrior” Calderon, AMLO demanded a full recount based on evidence of irregularities in no fewer than – wait for it – 113,855 voting booths around the country.
The authority trusted (or not) with clearing up this mess is Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), which on Tuesday granted a partial recount of ballots from 78,000 voting booths, or casillas (54.5% of the total vote). Compare that to the just 3,000 ballots recounted in 2006 when the result was even tighter. The concession was surely an attempt to dampen the mobilization of AMLO’s considerable (and angry) support base that rocked the nation’s streets six years ago – not to mention the rolling thunder of the #YoSoy132 student movement. Read more.
The MexicoBlog of the Americas Program, a fiscally sponsored program of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), is written by Laura Carlsen. I monitor and analyze international press on Mexico, with a focus on security, immigration, human rights and social movements for peace and justice, from a feminist perspective. And sometimes I simply muse.
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