Mexican count (and recount?): could be long and ugly

By Joshua Holland

Feather's prologue: A title news on Justin Delacour's site reads: "Obrador might not be Al Gore"... uhmmm. So, the author of that article really thinks that W is in power by fraud. Interesting. But hey! Looks like Mexico isn't Venezuela either, since in Venezuela there was a big fraud allegation that was put like dust under the carpet by Jimmy Carter et al like whatareyoutakingaboutWillis?? Everything was fine and dandy there! and the opposition has being patronized and ridiculized blatantly by leftist like Justin. Doesn't matter how many studies (like this one for example) about this fraud have been released. So what's the difference in here my 2 and a half dear readers? That the one who comitted fraud in Venezuela was a communist leftist nutcase tyrant, and not a right wing one. So because Hugo is a communist, he has the universal right given by the leftist "intellectuals" and their very selective analytical brains to step over the population and not to be talked about. Shhhhsshhhiitoooo. PERIOD. Yes my dear folks, that's how the left operates. My way or the highway. And with the threat of the Venezuelan corrupted military against their own citizens who dared to protest, the country is deeply inmersed in shit and seems there's nothing we can do about, since this is all about Georgie boy conspiracy to kill Hugo and all who dissent the dementia of Chavez is a traitor and will be killed by the revolution. But let's read what Holland have to say about Mexico since Venezuela is a lost case:

In Mexico, each precinct does its own count, which is attached to the sealed ballot box and sent to the Federal Election Institute (IFE). All of the preliminary tallies are based on the precincts' counts. The official count will begin tomorrow, and is expected to last for up to a week.

It looks likely that there will be challenges. Manuel Camacho Solís, a top adviser to López Obrador, said Monday that "Our perception is that there have been very important irregularities."

Both candidates continue to claim victory -- the Mexican press has repeatedly said that the situation represents a "worst case scenario."

A preliminary, uncertified count showed PAN candidate Felipe Calderon with a 400,000-vote lead. Lopez Obrador's camp is charging that there was "vote-shaving" at some voting stations, especially in his home state of Tabasco. Lopez Obrador alleges that as many as three million votes are missing, citing a discrepancy between estimated projected turnout and preliminary counts. He stopped short of calling the elections fraudulent, but is already calling for a ballot-by-ballot recount. He hasn't yet asked his supporters to take it to the streets, as many expect him to do if Calderon ends up with a narrow lead.

The Washington Post reports that both parties are lawyering up, and all of the papers are talking about a legal process reminiscent of that which followed the 2000 Florida impasse. In Mexico, however, there's more breathing room -- the president doesn't take office for five months -- so there won't be pressure to cut the process short. The vote is almost certain to end up in the Federal Judicial Electoral Tribunal, a court that has the ultimate say on the winner. The whole thing could drag on for months; election authorities aren't required to certify the vote until September 6.

The process will put Mexico's electoral institutions, which have undergone dramatic reforms during the past ten years, to the test. Will they be transparent enough to deal with a nail-biter? Polls show that the IFE is one of the country's most trusted institutions, but that may not hold up if things get ugly and a lot of charges are flying around. Some PRD officials are accusing the IFE of "bias."

Whatever the final outcome, it's likely that the close vote and a sharply divided legislature will make it difficult for the eventual winner to govern. One analyst called it a "recipe for gridlock."

The head of the EU observer mission said yesterday that the results of Mexican elections were "so far reliable" and they ruled out widespread fraud in the elections, although they noted scattered irregularities.

The elections were monitored by thousands of foreign observers, and most of the monitoring organizations have yet to submit reports on their findings. When they do, we'll have a clearer picture of what transpired, from an on-the-ground perspective.

Joshua Holland is a staff writer at Alternet and a regular contributor to The Gadflyer