Mexico's old ruling party falls short of majority

In the lower house of Congress, it is expected that 240 seats will go to the PRI and the Green Party, 10 to the New Alliance Party, 114 to the PAN, and 101 to the PRD, although the PRD is also allied with smaller parties (together the progressive party could have 136 seats). Final totals are still to be determined in a few weeks.

AP: MEXICO CITY - Mexico's old ruling party and its allies appear to have fallen just short of a majority in both houses of Congress, electoral authorities said Tuesday, giving smaller parties the potential of leveraging their swing votes and increasing the likelihood that parties will try to poach congressmen from rivals.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party, which held Mexico's presidency for 71 years, has been declared the winner of the July 1 presidential elections, marking its first return to the presidency since 2000. Read more.

Citizen organization denounces voting irregularities and coercion

CNN Mexico: Americas Program Original Translation
See Spanish Original.
28.4% of citizens were exposed to at least one experience of vote-buying, reported Civic Alliance 

The presidential election on July 1st in Mexico “was not a clean or fair one”, concluded the civil organization Civic Alliance after carrying out an observational study of the elections.

Observers detected that 28.4% of citizens were exposed to at least one experience of vote-buying and vote coercion.

After processing 91% of the information collected in 21 federal entities, the organization concluded that 71% of the pressure to vote for a party was in favor of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) coalition and the Ecological Green Party of Mexico (PVEM); following with 17% in favor of the National Action Party (PAN), 9% in favor of the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) and 3% for the New Alliance.

“This election is unsatisfactory, when we see these reports that give evidence that there were commissions of crimes, irregular practices, enormous secret spending. The fairness in this election is broken,” said Eduadro Huchim, member of the organization and former electoral councilor of Mexico City.

After taking 3,158 surveys, Civic Alliance announced on Tuesday that in 21% of the voting stations the principal of exercising a free and confidential vote was violated by different causes such as: people observing inside the partitions, that the voters were supposed to show their vote to someone to receive gifts, citizens exercising some type of pressure on the voters and that “it was detected that one or various children accompanied different citizens on different occasions to vote.”

This last practice, that the Civic Alliance named the use of “children as hawks,” was detected in the State of Mexico, Jalisco, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, when under-age minors received pay for accompanying voters on different occasions to vote and leave the voting station; they were informed that this had been seen.

Panicked shopping in Soriana from fear the PRI will cancel gift cards

La Jornada: Americas Program Original Translation by Ryan Gentzler
See Spanish original.

The fear that fraud would be discovered caused several locations of the national supermarket chain Soriana to be overrun early this week. Hundreds of people from the State of Mexico and the Federal District who had sold their votes to the PRI-PVEM coalition exchanged the prepaid cards they had been given for food and electronics. “They said they had been told that they were going to cancel the electronic cards. They’re worried because we already voted.”

Another theory behind the cards being cancelled was that Martha Angón, a candidate for mayor in Nezahualcóyotl, was losing. “But that’s not my fault. I saw that Peña Nieto's wife raised his hand [in celebration of his victory], so it worked.”

Customers began redeeming the cards, identified by cashiers of the chain as “the vouchers that the PRI gave them so that Peña would win," Friday night within the Federal District limits and the municipality of Nezahualcóyotl,

They were initially offered only one hundred pesos [about $8] for their votes, said those who received cards. But the amount increased as the election came closer. “Yesterday – Sunday, July 1st – you went to the poll, you voted, you took a picture of the ballot marked for PRI, you showed them it and they gave you the card,” explained Rocío Ugalde.

Reports of voting irregularities

The early returns from today's election have included reports of voting irregularities and controversy, but the special federal investigative unit for electoral crime FEPADE will withhold information until all votes are counted. Parties have accused one another of fraudulent practices, and incidents have been reported throughout the country. Voting irregularities, however, have not been considered widespread.

The El Paso Times reports that Movimiento Ciudadano (Citizen Movement), a left leaning political party coalition, says it has "received reports of electoral volunteers destroying ballots and [of] urns that had been previously filled with votes." In Monterrey, armed men stormed a polling place in Monterrey and stole the urns of votes there, according to La Jornada (original in Spanish). Terra reports (original in Spanish) that members of the left leaning PRD have accused members of the center-right PRI of giving out favors and a PRI sympathizer reported that the PVEM (Green Party) bought votes in Cuernavaca. According to El Universal (original in Spanish), FEPADE, the governmental elections oversight agency, has opened 62 investigations, focused mainly in Mexico DF, Chiapas, Hidalgo, and Veracruz, corresponding to 605 specific complaints of vote buying and illegal campaigning.

Articles:
Mexican election: Irregularities at Juarez voting boothsreported (updated)
El Paso Times: JUAREZ - As Election Day moves forward, political party representatives are reporting irregularities at the voting booths that range from missing and destroyed ballots, previously filled urns and offering money for votes. Read more.

Urns robbed at voting station in Monterrey
La Jornada - Spanish original only.

FEPADE reports first electoral irregularities
Terra - Spanish original only.

FEPADE opens 62 investigations from the day
El Universal - Spanish original only. 

Posted by Ryan Gentzler

Mexico's green party focuses more on money than environment

Miami Herald: MEXICO CITY -- The Ecologist Green Party of Mexico isn't your garden-variety group advocating recycling and mass transportation. It's swimming in cash, ideologically flexible and tainted by scandal.

And it plays an outsized role in the campaign that's leading up to this country's presidential election July 1. For one thing, it's in a coalition with the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the odds-on favorite to recapture the presidency. It may form part of the next government. Read more.