Nightmare scenario hangs over Mexico election

Nightmare scenario hangs over Mexico election

By Alistair Bell
Reuters
Monday, June 26, 2006; 1:57 PM

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Millions of angry protesters claiming vote fraud, chaos in the courts, financial markets collapsing, troops in the streets -- that's the nightmare scenario should Mexico's July 2 presidential election have a disputed finish.

Although Mexico is unlikely to spin out of control, its young democracy could be tested to the limits if the vote, the first since one-party rule ended in 2000, ends in deadlock.

Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is only inches ahead of conservative Felipe Calderon in opinion polls. To complicate matters, Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party is not far behind them in some surveys.
(snip)

Electoral authorities are generally seen as independent but in a country where many believe widespread allegations that the government stole a presidential election from a leftist in 1988, things could still go wrong.
(snip/...)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/26/AR2006062600637.html

exploitative features of NAFTA, and has said it publically. _Bush undoubtedly will be pushing as hard as he can to keep him from being elected.

Already "AMLO" has been smashed by a vicious wave of campaign attacks, accusing him of being wild and wooly, a crazy guy who will screw everything up, a bomb-tossing Chavez-lovin' socialist, etc., etc., etc.

Lopez Obrador's numbers took a dive, then started rising again. It was very easy to see when the attacks started, that the right-wing candidate Calderon was probably getting some Rove-style advice from somewhere, just as it happened in Peru, when the leftist Ollanta Humala, who was WAAAAY out in front was suddenly assaulted massively and continuously by Alan Garcia, and right-wing Peruvian opponents, and almost disappeared from sight altogether before starting to climb back out of the hole, just before the election.

Just as Hugo Chavez's opposition gets very large payoffs from _Bush's administration via his various channels like NED, and USAID, you can be sure heavy funding is also going to opposition in ALL the other Latin American (and Caribbean) governments, as well. It's not that the U.S. is threatened: it's a power thing. Right-wingers feel they have to cheat to keep the only power around, even in other countries, whose affairs are none of their business. They NEVER respect the will of people to elect their own leaders. They've said as much publically, people like Kissinger and Condoleeza Rice.

NEVER respects the will of people to elect their own leaders

The fix is in. We can't have a Mexican President who will put his people first!

To offset USAID.......

Mexico's been our number one bitch (puta numero uno) since 1848 and we don't take kindly to our bitches gettin' too uppity.

to get their neo con elected

Only to help the poor Mexicans out, of course.
This is a giant pantload of FUD(*).

* - "Fear, uncertainty, doubt".

they demanded FDR invade like in the 10s, but he said no (partly because they'd tried to overthrow HIM too!!!)

unlike the US, with our well-established, complacent deMOCKracy, the 'young democracy' of Mexico may prove quite feisty if there is a shady conservative win.

Someday we may learn from all these wacky leftists in Central and South America who are causing such a ruckus. Viva Obrador :D

And blow the whistle on fraud here.

I asked him about the election and how he'll vote. He's voting with the conservative, he thinks the leftist is 'crazy'. I didn't really press him on his opinion but we did agree on the issue that far too few people in Mexico control almost all of the money.

That gives BOTH sides a claim to righteous indignation, and gives the "winning" side no mandate to govern.. It also guarantees that BOTH sides will harden their "hatred" for each other.,.and it will insure that future election will come, packed with juicy insults and questionable results...in perpetuity

It's something that America has perfected ..... and happily exported..

June 29, 2006, 2:19AM
Lopez Obrador: man of promises
As vote nears, Mexican populist's hopes depend on appealing to a thirst for change
Mexico's populist candidate a man of promise

By DANE SCHILLER and JESSE BOGAN
San Antonio Express-news

MEXICO CITY - Standing before stone walls of the centuries-old National Palace, populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador capped his phenomenal run for president by asking a pumped-up crowd of more than 200,000 people to help him put the poor first.

Lopez Obrador rallied the masses in Mexico City's central plaza — the nation's most historic site — as he sought to put the presidency, for the first time, in the hands of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party.

"We are going to transform the country, we are going to make history," he said, facing a crush of yellow and black shirts, flags, hats and bandanas to show the party colors.

He spoke of the fight for independence from Spain and the 1910 revolution but said this change would come with peace and respect.

"I do not hate; I am a happy man," he said. "All I want is for us to live in a better society."
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/4011092.html

What does that say about our one party rule? Are we no longer a democracy?

How do you measure inches in opinion polls? :evilgrin:

way they were dispatched to miami during the 2000 protest.

Stealing Mexico

Bush Team Helps Ruling Party "Floridize" Mexican Presidential Election
by Greg Palast

BROOKLYN, NY -- (OfficialWire) -- 06/30/06 -- GEORGE Bush's operatives have plans to jigger with the upcoming elections. I'm not talking about the November '06 vote in the USA (though they have plans for that, too). I'm talking about the election this Sunday in Mexico for their Presidency.

It begins with an FBI document marked, "Counterterrorism" and "Foreign Intelligence Collection" and "Secret." Date: "9/17/2001," six days after the attack on the World Trade towers. It's nice to know the feds got right on the ball, if a little late.

What does this have to do with jiggering Mexico's election? Hold that thought.
(snip)

In Mexico this Sunday, we can expect to see the same: challenges of Obrador voters in a race, the polls say, is too close to call. Not that Mexico's rulers need lessons from the Bush Administration on how to mess with elections.

In 1988, the candidate for Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PDR), who opinion polls showed as a certain winner, somehow came up short against the incumbent party of the ruling elite. Some of the electoral tricks were far from subtle. In the state of Guerrero, the PDR was leading on official tally sheets by 359,369. Oddly, the official final count was 309,202 for the ruling party, only182,874 for the PDR. Challenging the vote would have been dangerous. Two top officials of Obrador's party were assassinated during the campaign.
(snip/...)

http://www.officialwire.com/main.php?action=recent&rid=20979

~snip~
Whether the US "War on Terror" lists will find a use in Sunday's election, we cannot know. But the use of American government resources to interfere in south-of-the-border campaigns is an open secret. The GOP's International Republican Institute has run training sessions for the PAN youth wing, funded by US taxpayers through the "National Endowment for Democracy."

Foreign—that is, American—interference in political campaigns is a crime. That didn't stop Team Bush. However, when the theft of its citizen files was discovered, Argentina threatened to arrest ChoicePoint contractors until the company returned the tapes—and Mexico's attorney general did in fact arrest the ChoicePoint data thieves to avoid his party's looking too much the stooge of its Washington patron. Whether George Bush gave back his copy, no one will say.

Wholesale theft is expected on Sunday in forms both subtle and brutal. How the US' purloined "counterterrorism" lists will be used, we don't know. We are certain however, that the Administration did not siphon off these Latin voter files to fight a War on Terror. It appears, rather, part of the Bush Administration's and GOP's hemispheric War on Democracy—along a battle line which runs from Florida to Ohio to Juarez.
(snip/...)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Best of all hopes for the right candidate to win this one, this time, and to live without being assassinated as Mexico's President for a complete term or two.

Mexican presidential hopefuls
Rough Cut
03:17

Jun. 30 - Mexico holds presidential elections on Sunday (Jul. 2), when voters will pick a president for a six-year term.

Holding a very narrow lead in the opinion polls is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the presidential candidate from the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).

Felipe Calderon represents the ruling conservative National Action Party (PAN), who is running neck and neck with Lopez Obrador.

Roberto Madrazo is the presidential candidate from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled for most of the 20th century. He is third in the polls.
(snip/...)

http://today.reuters.com/tv/videoStory.aspx?isSummitStory=false&storyId=3b1e7a58904d59702fecc5d8b7fffbfb290f0efe

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There's a small Reuters news clip which will give you a tiny look at their speaking styles.

that I almost - almost - want to see at least parts of that happening, if just so a country closer to the US than CIS states can show Americans how it's supposed to be done when there's a rigged vote or when the government otherwise Goes Too Far?

I can't stand political limbo, and things have felt like they're at that point. I really want things to either pull back considerably, or get taken juuuuuuuust a bit further, to the point where people finally say "okay, enough is enough" and mean it one way or another.

Le sigh.

Voters set to choose Mexico's next leader
Tight race for president between leftist and ex-Mexico City mayor

Updated: 1 hour, 13 minutes ago
MEXICO CITY - Mexico will decide whether to join the growing leftist camp in Latin America or stick with a free-market path in a presidential election on Sunday that is balanced on a knife-edge.

In a country crucial to U.S. interests in border security, trade and immigration, polls show an extremely close race between leftist anti-poverty crusader and former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and conservative Felipe Calderon, a former energy minister from the ruling party.

Lopez Obrador, 52, leads opinion polls by about only 2 percentage points after almost six months of bruising campaigning that split a country still finding its feet with full democracy after seven decades of one-party rule ended in 2000.

The leftist, who rejects any comparisons to U.S. foe Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, promises to slash bureaucracy to pay for welfare programs he says will lift millions out of poverty.
(snip/...)

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13665915/

Mexico peasants take on yuppies in presidential vote today

July 2, 2006

BY MARK STEVENSON

MEXICO CITY -- A gaggle of farmers in threadbare shirts swarmed into a swank shopping mall, drawing stares and snarls from better-dressed patrons when the peasants hesitated at stepping on unfamiliar escalators.

The farmers weren't buying anything -- they were cutting through the mall on their way to a rally for leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The disdainful shoppers were part of a middle class that has swelled under the presidency of Vicente Fox.

The image summed up the social divide at the heart of Mexico's election today.

''For some people, this has taken on aspects of a class struggle, the light-skinned against the dark ones, the 'decent' people against the rest,'' said author and social critic Guadalupe Loeza.
(snip)

Today, half of Mexico's 103 million live on $4.50 a day and the poorest 20 million earn half that -- a gulf that has been the cornerstone of Lopez Obrador's campaign to succeed Fox, who is barred from seeking-re-election.

This election boils down to a race between those strangers in the shopping mall and Mexicans who fear losing the low-interest loans and economic stability that emerged under Fox's budgets and high international reserves.
(snip)

First results will come in by about 8 p.m. Chicago time today.
(snip/)

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-mex02s1.html

Mexico at crossroads in election thriller

By Alistair Bell
15 minutes ago

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico will decide whether to join the growing leftist camp in Latin America or stick with a free-market path in a presidential election on Sunday that is balanced on a knife-edge.

In a country crucial to U.S. interests in border security, trade and immigration, polls show an extremely close race between leftist anti-poverty crusader and former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and conservative Felipe Calderon, a former energy minister from the ruling party.

Lopez Obrador, 52, leads opinion polls by about only 2 percentage points after almost six months of bruising campaigning that split a country still finding its feet with full democracy after seven decades of one-party rule ended in 2000.

The leftist, who rejects any comparisons to U.S. foe Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, promises to slash bureaucracy to pay for welfare programs he says will lift millions out of poverty.
(snip/...)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060702/ts_nm/mexico_election_dc;_ylt=A9G_RwrOxKdEdj8AfwdZ.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--