Mexican Left seeks annulment of over 3 million votes in presidential election recount (Translation)

La Crónica de Hoy ^ | August 12, 2006 | Daniel Blancas Madrigal ( translated by self )

[StJacques]

Just sit tight Reverend Bob. I can report that the recount has been completed in Guanajuato, though no numbers are given, and the PRD is furious. If the PRD is furious I would suggest that things must not have gone their way. My examination of all of this says that AMLO is going to get more than a 5,000 vote swing in his direction, though I cannot tell just how much more. But I don't think it's going to be very much.

No one can say for sure just how many votes AMLO needed to gain in this recount to convince the Tribunal that there were enough to go for a full recount of everything, but the figure that has been tossed around is 20,000 votes, roughly equal to the same percentage of the total difference between Calderon and AMLO in the final vote tally. And the logic is that if AMLO cannot show a gain commensurate with that number in the 9.07% of the total packets recounted in which the external evidence -- these are the official reports which show numbers voting, votes recorded, null votes, plus the registration rolls -- said he had the best chance, then the Tribunal would not do anything more.

AMLO is not getting enough of a swing in his favor Reverend Bob. Calm yourself.

But what we do have to worry about is what happens when the Tribunal declares Calderon the winner and AMLO is informed that he is no longer a "presidential candidate" under Mexican law, something that changes a lot of things by the way. THAT is the moment when I expect him to crack and lash out and what follows then is potentially quite dangerous.

[StJacques]

"If I've been reading St Jacques correctly, the precincts that have endured recounting were the most likely to favor ObraGore."

For the sake of precision I would suggest the following revision to the latter part of that statement:

". . . the precincts that have endured recounting were those in which ObraGore was most likely to see movement in his direction."

Yes; Calderon has taken his hit and even if they were to go ahead with a total recount the worst is already over.

[livius]

Percentage-wise, it's not a big deal. What has happened, from what I have read, is that many of the null votes are now being tallied for AMLO. The same thing happened in Florida in 2000, when it was somehow decided that any ballot that was unreadable, had two votes for the same office, or was otherwise damaged should go to Gore. But the initial margin was much smaller so it made a difference.

Calderon had a comfortable margin. Remember that Kerry tried to do this in the 2004 election, in the state of Michigan (? - may have been a different big midwestern state), where he thought he'd be able to get away with it. But there was too much of a difference and it didn't work for him.

[livius]

Yes, we have to watch that. The union thing is sort of a wild card.

[livius]

Does he have a lot of support? I know he has probably lined up the unions and the civil servants of Mexico City, but does he have much local support outside of this?

[StJacques]

I'm convinced his support is regional and highly-concentrated. Tabasco, Chiapas, Oaxaca, the State of Mexico, the Federal District and enclaves in Guerrero and Veracruz that are actually numerous but concentrated. And obviously there is a class nature to all of this.

There is something of a North-South split developing here. The years of strong immigrant contacts betwen the North of Mexico and the U.S. have paid big dividends for that area and they are much more modern and, sadly, look down on their southern brethren, which causes some antipathy on the part of the latter in return.

[StJacques]

I think the state in question for Kerry in 2004 was Ohio and it wasn't so much Kerry himself as his "tin foil hat" and Moonbat supporters spinning dark fairy tales that were involved.

[livius]

Yes, it was Ohio. I think they may have made noises about other Midwestern states, but Ohio was the only one they really went bonkers about. Not that it did them any good. But it did slow down GWB's victory a bit.

[StJacques]

"But it did slow down GWB's victory a bit."

They're still trying to de-legitimize GWB. Rolling Stone printed an article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. just a couple of months ago that still tries to argue that Ohio was stolen from Kerry.

[livius]

In general, what is the attitude of the press? I think that's going to make a big difference if he manages to divide the country regionally. The regional press in Mexico seems to me to be more important to Mexicans than the US regional press is to US Americans, so maybe the opinion of the national press, whatever it is, wouldn't be that important in Mexican terms. I don't know much about it.

[StJacques]

Well, the press that really matters is in Mexico City. I have noted a genuine drift in the editorial opinion among El Universal's columnists away from AMLO since the election. Right after the vote, they were printing some opinions of pro-PRD columnists that seemed to suggest they wanted to keep everything on an equal footing. But no more. Beyond their cartoonists, no one at that paper is in AMLO's corner any more. La Jornada is decidedly pro-PRD, but that's about it. La Cronica de Hoy has already fashioned itself as a conservative alternative in the Mexico City press, so they're definitely opposed to AMLO. And Reforma, probably the most important newspaper in all of Mexico, has been rabidly anti-PRD for some time now. And by the way, that is a big change from when I was there, as I remember Reforma as quite liberal.

Around the rest of the country, most of the major papers are usually close to the sentiments of their local populations. Monterey has a local paper that is decidedly more liberal than their constituency, but that is about the only major exception.

[StJacques]

This is a follow-up to my just-posted #71.

I forgot to mention that radio and TV seem to be stacked against AMLO as well. AMLO and the PRD have been complaining about them constantly and PRD demonstrators routinely march with banners showing top TV commentators, groups of them in fact, "painted over" with clown make-up.

[Shuttle Shucker]

Ha ha! AMLO hasn't ALREADY cracked? :-) That humpty dumpty's syphillis is leaking out of his eyelid as we saw a week or two ago. He ain't all there :-)

[Shuttle Shucker]

>>>Calderon has taken his hit and even if they were to go ahead with a total recount the worst is already over.<<<

That is VERY reassuring. Now watch the Zocalo have relatively few people show up today. Humpty Dumpty ObraGore will crack up even further.

[Shuttle Shucker]

Incidentally, the Soros Group was / is a heavy investor in mainly wireless telecom company Axtel:

http://www.axtel.com.mx

I think he aspired to take over the internet and then make access to some media outlets faster than to others (presumably with an eye to favoring Leftist ones). But as a search for Axtel at http://finance.google.com shows, Axtel's IPO hardly even got off the ground last winter. And very soon Mexican cable companies will be able to offer phone service like they already can offer internet and t.v. service. If Axtel has a grand future, I'm not aware of it. Cablemas needed Axtel to offer telecom services up until a few days ago when Cablemas finally got its own telco permit (as http://www.Canitec.org documents). But like the other cable companies in Mexico, Cablemas is debt-ridden so now the fight has been to keep phone monopoly TelMex from being able to offer t.v. services yet, while the cable sector struggles to catch up. The owner of TelMex is Carlos Slim, Forbes' 2nd wealthiest man on Earth (now that Warren Buffet has been liquidating & donating). Telecom service in Mexico is still bad and expensive...but things could change if Felipe Calderon sticks to his pro-entrepreneurial guns. Unsurprisingly, ObraGore is buddies with Carlos Slim, which suggests Slim's monopoly would get to remain intact (unlike AT&T's during the 1980's).

[Shuttle Shucker]

Ohio was the state where Kerry's race went down to the wire. Perhaps that's the state you had in mind.

[Shuttle Shucker]

Some unions are still PRI loyalists down there.

[Shuttle Shucker]

Encouragingly enough, though, the Southern state of Yucatan is very pro-PAN and supported Felipe (as did Puebla). I asked an amigo in Merida, Yucatan why this is. He said he's not a politically affiliated person but it's a dry state, so entrepreneurs need all the help they can get because they don't have lavish agriculture or petroleum to keep them afloat like ObraGore's nearby home state of Tabasco. The pro-entrepreneurial PAN is their best bet.

[Shuttle Shucker]

Is that the Kennedy who has been in and out of a post-DUI halfway house? Maybe he should hang out with the Stones less often.

[Shuttle Shucker]

Please see my post on Yucatan below. Meanwhile though, you've raised a good point. As there are only 3 million internet access accounts in Mexico (because wireless broadband spectrum WiMax isn't yet liberated: http://www.directorio.com.mx/wimax ), folks don't access newspapers online like they can up here. The printed media still plays a prominent role, and the most desired news probably tends to be local.