ON A PEACEFUL ELECTION DAY ACROSS MEXICO, GROWING SIGNS OF A MATURING DEMOCRACY
THE NEW YORK TIMES
JULY 3, 2006
MEXICO CITY, July 2 — If Mexico is a young democracy, it looked much older than its age during the uncertain presidential elections on Sunday.
Thousands of striking teachers in the southern state of Oaxaca postponed their protests to leave the polling places clear for voters. Subcommander Marcos, the ski-masked leader of the Zapatista rebels who was at the front of machete-wielding mobs just one month ago, led a peaceful march through Mexico City.
The government's Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, welcomed hundreds of observers from all over the world. The authorities estimated that more than two-thirds of registered voters would show up at the polls. And at polling places that once were scenes of huge voter fraud and intimidation, voting passed without serious disruptions or complaints. And at the end of the night, when President Vicente Fox went on national television to explain that the race was too close to call, a nation gripped by suspense and leery of dirty tricks remained calm.
"I know there is no Mexican who wants to go against democracy," Mr. Fox said after casting his ballot on Sunday. "And for that, I offer recognition to the people of Mexico who have known how to consolidate this democracy, to give it strength."
MEXICO'S ELECTION PITS PROMISE AGAINST FEAR
THE NEW YORK TIMES
JUNE 29, 2006
MEXICO CITY,— Mexico's polarizing presidential campaign ended officially on Wednesday and, with four days to go before the vote, it has come down to a contest between a gritty, charismatic advocate for the poor and a well-educated technocrat.
Like many elections, this one is a struggle between promise and fear and remains too close to call. On one side is Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City who has traveled little outside Mexico and says he is inspired by Gandhi and Franklin D. Roosevelt. On the other is Felipe Calderón, the former energy minister with a Harvard degree who talks of fitting Mexico into the globalized economy.
But for many voters the choice is complicated because Mexico only emerged six years ago from seven decades of single-party, autocratic rule and there are some who say that what is at stake on Sunday is the survival of still-fragile democratic institutions.
"My fear is that with López Obrador we could end up very soon with an all-powerful president again," Enrique Krauze, an author and historian, said Monday at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, adding that Mr. López Obrador was "very ignorant" and "inward looking" and "dismisses the rule of law as something made by the bourgeoisie to oppress the poor."
MEXICO ENDS TIGHT, TOUGH RACE
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
JUNE 30, 2006
MEXICO CITY – Six years ago, Vicente Fox won a historic presidential election here and ushered in a new era of true multiparty politics. Out went the days of rigged elections, hand-picked leaders, and rubber-stamp congresses, and in came a period of more responsive politicians, increasing transparency, vigorous political debate - and vicious negative campaigning.
"[This year's presidential race] has been the most competitive, arguably the most interesting race in our history ... but also the dirtiest," says Julio Madrazo of the CMM consultant group in Mexico City.
The outcome of Sunday's vote will affect whether Mexico will join Latin America's leftward trend or continue to strengthen US ties and focus on free-market reforms.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a leftist who portrays himself as a savior of the poor, holds a very slim lead in opinion polls over conservative Felipe Calderón, a proponent of fiscal conservatism and free trade. Running third in polls is Roberto Madrazo, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that governed Mexico from 1929 to 2000. Two other minor candidates have single-digit support each.
But for many Mexicans, notes Mark Schneider, a Latin America expert at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, it's the negative campaigning, and not the substance that will ultimately drive the vote.
A FORMER GUERRILLA REINVENTS HIMSELF AS A CANDIDATE
THE NEW YORK TIMES
JULY 1, 2006
CARACAS, Venezuela - More than seven years into the government of the leftist president Hugo Chávez, people here barely raise an eyebrow to having former Marxist guerrillas in positions of power. One is foreign minister, another is the chief executive of the government's aluminum producer and yet another was one of Mr. Chávez's first representatives to OPEC.
Now, one of the country's most eminent ex-guerrillas, Teodoro Petkoff Malec, is seeking to oust Mr. Chávez in this year's presidential election. Mr. Petkoff is basing his bid on what he calls impeccable leftist credentials and a promise to end the polarization of Venezuelan society between Mr. Chávez's supporters and opponents.
With Mr. Chávez far ahead in the polls, Mr. Petkoff's campaign as an independent appears quixotic. But it is no more surprising than a political career that has spanned half a century and included not only armed struggle against the government and spectacular prison escapes but also a rebirth as a congressman and, later, as a planning minister who created an austerity program that won backing from the International Monetary Fund.
His most recent incarnation as aspirant to the presidency comes after several years as editor of Tal Cual, a newspaper sharply critical of Mr. Chávez's administration and the opposition's tactics. He still describes himself as "a man of the left," though he broke with Movement Toward Socialism, a party he helped build over nearly three decades, over its declaration of support for Mr. Chávez in 1998.
MEXICO CHARGES EX-PRESIDENT IN '68 MASSACRE
THE NEW YORK TIMES
JULY 1, 2006
MEXICO CITY,— Just two days before a tight national election, a judge has ordered the arrest of former President Luis Echeverría on genocide charges in connection with his role during the massacre of student protesters here in 1968, overturning a lower court ruling.
The arrest of Mr. Echeverría, who is 84 and in poor health, came after two failed attempts by a special prosecutor to charge him with the deaths and disappearances of dozens of students and leftist dissidents in the late 1960's and early 1970's, a period known here as the dirty war.
The ruling was a major victory for President Vicente Fox, who staked much of his political legacy on holding government officials legally responsible for past atrocities rather than forming a truth commission that had no legal teeth.
Mr. Fox's inability thus far to obtain any convictions in connection with the massacres has been widely seen as a major failure. So the arrest of Mr. Echeverría is likely to boost the chances of Felipe Calderón, the presidential candidate of Mr. Fox's National Action Party, at the polls on Sunday.
But the special prosecutor, Ignacio Carrillo Prieto, denied that the judge's decision had anything to do with politics. The timing was a coincidence, he said.
MEXICAN VOTE HINGES ON CONFLICTED MIDDLE CLASS
THE NEW TORK TIMES
JULY 2, 2006
NICOLÁS ROMERO, Mexico,— Although Mexico's presidential race has been broadly cast as a fight between the rich and the poor, its outcome on Sunday will almost certainly be decided by voters like the ones who live in the neat rows of condominiums that went up here two years ago.
For the first time since 1995, when a banking crisis crushed the country's economic aspirations, inflation and interest rates are low enough to begin lifting appreciable numbers of working families into gated communities like the Cantaros III neighborhood here in Mexico State.
With one foot out of Mexico's economic quicksand and children close to graduating from college, the middle-class families here provide a microcosm of the 35 percent of Mexican voters whose loyalties cross political lines and who are avidly being courted by the two leading candidates: Felipe Calderón, a conservative technocrat who is backed by business leaders, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a leftist populist with passionate support among the poor.
Despite rampant government corruption and an all-out war against police officers by this country's powerful drug cartels, the economy seemed at the center of almost everyone's mind. In general, the half dozen voters interviewed here agreed that the past six years of stability had been a welcome relief from the roller coaster ride that spanned the previous two decades. But just as they expressed fear that a sudden change in economic policies would bring crisis, they also vented frustration that the government did not do enough to help the downtrodden.
IN MEXICO, RIVALS PERFECTED ART OF POLITICAL ROADSHOW
THE WASHINGTON POST
JULY 2, 2006
MEXICO CITY, July 1 -- They've cavorted with transvestite television hosts, worn flouncy flower crowns, raffled off steers, commissioned skimpy skirts and shorts bearing their names -- and much, much more. Now, on what might have been a restful Sunday morning, they want Mexicans to get up and say: You're our leader.
This country's baroque approach to politics has been on full, fabulous, flashy display for months as the leading candidates, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Felipe Calderón and Roberto Madrazo, relentlessly traipsed across Mexico looking for votes. Part variety show, part country fair, a campaign appearance by a Mexican presidential candidate draws a bigger crowd -- a far bigger crowd -- than a Big Ten football game, and can make a U.S. political rally look puny and tame by comparison.
Syrupy mangoes, splitting open in the midday heat, scent the air while the candidates lampoon their opponents as variously too short, too violent or too corrupt. Someone is always selling chicharones, the comically gigantic sheets of deep-fried pork fat that Mexicans crave. Ranchera songs blast at eardrum-destroying decibel levels from fluted speakers mounted on car roofs. Leather-faced men, bused in from the countryside, stand watching it all with slightly bemused expressions, clutching the free lunches and T-shirts that have enticed them to spend a day listening to promises they've heard many times before.
NICARAGUA CANDIDATE DIES
THE NEW YORK TIMES
JULY 3, 2006
MANAGUA, Nicaragua, July 2 (Reuters) — A Nicaraguan presidential candidate who opposed the bid by former President Daniel Ortega to retake power died of a heart attack on Sunday, his party said.
Herty Lewites, a center-left former mayor of Managua, split from Mr. Ortega's Sandinista Party to form the Sandinista Renovation Movement. His breakaway group had been expected to hurt the prospects of Mr. Ortega in the Nov. 5 election. Mr. Lewites, who was 67, came in third in a recent opinion poll.
Mr. Ortega, whose government defied Washington throughout the 1980s, was leading the election race, according to an opinion poll published last week.
He was defeated by Violeta Chamorro, a candidate favored by the United States, in 1990.
LIKELY RESULT FOR MEXICO: A POLITICALLY WEAK PRESIDENT
MIAMI HERALD
JUL. 03, 2006
MEXICO CITY -- The virtual tie among Mexico's top presidential candidates in Sunday's election is one of the worst possible scenarios for this country. It creates new political tensions and the prospect that whoever wins will be politically weak, with no working majority in Congress.
While President Vicente Fox won the 2000 election with 42 percent of the votes, the new president -- whether pro-business government candidate Felipe Calderón or left-of-center former Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador -- will win with only 36 percent of the votes, according to most exit polls.
This is a bad omen. If Fox led a minority government that could not pass any major law through Congress, and was thus seen as a somewhat ineffective leader, whoever takes his place will have an even bigger challenge to pass laws and move the country forward.
Much of the problem stems from the fact that Mexico has a three-party system, in which the two opposition parties systematically block all initiatives coming from the government party. Most exit polls indicate that the next Congress will be almost evenly divided in three political blocs.
The exit-poll results also show that Mexico did not vote massively for either continuity or change. In a sense, it was a middle-of-the-road vote, in which more than a third of the people voted for the pro-free-market continuity offered by Calderón, more than a third for a reversion to the nationalist welfare state offered by López Obrador, and a smaller number for a combination of both, offered by the once ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
ONCE-POWERFUL PRI NOW TRYING TO SURVIVE
THE MIAMI HERALD
JUL. 03, 2006
MEXICO CITY - Amid the confusion surrounding Mexico's presidential election, one thing was clear Monday: The Institutional Revolutionary Party's historic defeat six years ago was not a fluke.
The PRI, which ruled Mexico for 71 years until it was narrowly defeated by Vicente Fox in 2000, got a painful beating at the polls Sunday.
Its presidential candidate finished third - at least 13 percentage points behind the front-runners - and it lost its plurality in Congress for the first time since it was formed in 1929, preliminary results indicated.
The trouncing raises questions about the future of the party, which suffered infighting and defections during the campaign.
"The one thing that kept the PRI going was the hope it would recover power in this election. Now it has little to look forward to," political analyst Oscar Aguilar said.
At PRI headquarters in Mexico City, presidential hopeful Roberto Madrazo greeted the results with stunned disbelief. The 53-year-old marathon runner and lifelong PRI militant grinned and refused to answer questions while the party president read a declaration saying the PRI would scrutinize the results.
Even so, the close presidential race between Felipe Calderon and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador could give the party a new mission, allowing it to emerge as a powerbroker in Congress.
BOLIVIANS CHOOSE ASSEMBLY TO REVISE CONSTITUTION
THE NEW YORK TIMES
JULY 3, 2006
LA PAZ, Bolivia— Bolivians voted Sunday for a national assembly to retool the Constitution, an important step in President Evo Morales's plans to cement his leftist reforms and give more power to Bolivia's Indian majority.
Voters also decided whether to grant more fiscal and political autonomy to Bolivia's nine states — an issue that has exacerbated longstanding tensions between the country's wealthier eastern lowlands and its poorer highlands.
The referendum has generated criticism of Mr. Morales's close relationship with the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez. The main opposition party has accused Mr. Chávez of orchestrating Mr. Morales's campaign to remake the Constitution in Bolivia, South America's poorest country.
Initial surveys of voters leaving the polls showed Morales supporters headed for a majority in the 255-seat assembly, though it was too early to say whether they would secure the two-thirds control required to push through their agenda.
Voters in four states approved autonomy, with five states rejecting it, according to the surveys.
The assembly will begin work on Aug. 6 and take up to a year to rewrite the Constitution. Two-thirds of the body must approve the changes, which then must be endorsed in a nationwide referendum.
AUTONOMY VOTE MAY DAMPEN MORALES AGENDA
MIAMI HERALD
JUL. 03, 2006
LA PAZ, Bolivia - The fractious outcome of a vote on autonomy for Bolivia's states and the government's apparent failure to win enough backing to rewrite the constitution could dampened the leftist agenda of President Evo Morales.
Voters in Bolivia casts ballots on both issues Sunday. The wealthier eastern half overwhelmingly endorsed autonomy while those in the poorer and heavily indigenous western highlands, Morales power base, vigorously rejected it.
The results make it likely that Morales will face stiffer opposition as he seeks to improve the lot of Bolivia's Indian majority by more evenly distributing wealth and exerting greater state control over the economy.
An Aymara Indian and coca-growers leader elected in December with a strong populist mandate, Morales campaigned against autonomy, saying it would benefit the traditional elite.
He and his Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party were able to persuade most voters - 55 percent nationwide according to unofficial results - to reject autonomy by portraying it as a catastrophic harbinger of dissolution for South America's poorest country.
Morales said that he would respect the outcome of the autonomy vote, but that no state would be permitted to gain control of natural resources such as natural gas.
BOLIVIANS ELECT ASSEMBLY TO REVISE CONSTITUTION
THE WASHINGTON POST
JULY 3, 2006
LA PAZ, Bolivia, July 2 -- Bolivians voted Sunday for a national assembly to retool the constitution, a key step in President Evo Morales's plans to cement his reforms and give more power to the Andean nation's Indian majority.
The vote results, based on a partial count of votes at all polling stations done for the PAT television network, gave Morales supporters 132 seats in the 255-person body, far short of the two-thirds majority they needed to dominate the assembly.
In a separate ballot question with potentially far-reaching results, voters in four of Bolivia's nine states overwhelmingly chose greater political and economic autonomy for their states, according to the unofficial results.
Sunday's vote was a crucial test for Morales, an Aymara Indian elected in December on promises to wrest political control of South America's poorest nation from a corrupt political class and more evenly distribute the nation's wealth. He began to nationalize Bolivia's natural gas industry on May 1.
MEXICAN PRESIDENTIAL RIVALS BOTH CLAIM WIN IN TIGHT VOTE
THE WASHINGTON POST
JULY 3, 2006
MEXICO CITY, July 2 -- Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Felipe Calderón each claimed victory in Mexico's presidential election late Sunday night, even though the country's electoral commission said the race was so close it might not be able to announce the winner until Wednesday.
The dramatic announcements by López Obrador and Calderón shortly before midnight in Mexico City set up what is sure to be a furiously emotional battle over voting results in a nation that had spent tens of millions of dollars to ensure a fair and efficient election. Both candidates appeared on national television within minutes after Luis Carlos Ugalde, the head of the Federal Electoral Institute, announced that the difference between the two "was too narrow" for him to call the race.
López Obrador, a populist beloved by Mexico's poor, struck first, appearing before a bank of microphones and forcefully saying that "according to our information, we have won the presidency of Mexico." He said he would respect Mexico's institutions, but he also called on Mexico's institutions to respect the results. "We triumphed, we won," he said.
Calderón, a free-trade booster who promised continuity with President Vicente Fox's policies, appeared on television screens across Mexico moments later.
MEXICANS GO TO THE POLLS IN TIGHT RACE
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
JULY 03, 2006
MEXICO CITY – Mexicans headed to the polls Sunday in a hotly-contested presidential election pitting a leftist former mayor of Mexico City, who appeals to the poor, against a refined lawyer, who has rallied the country's business set.
It is the first presidential race since Vicente Fox's 2000 victory ended seven decades of one-party rule in Mexico.
Andrés Manual López Obrador of the left-leaning Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) has garnered widespread support by promising to tackle corruption and devising a "New Deal" of sorts for Mexico. Felipe Calderón of Fox's National Action Party (PAN) is neck and neck, promising to bring Mexico new jobs by pushing for more free-trade and foreign investment.
Their different principles have polarized voters. On a quiet, tree-lined street in the upper- middle-class Mexico City neighborhood of Condesa, Maria de Lourdes Olmedo cast her vote with her daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter - all of them Obrador supporters. "There is no one better than he," says Ms. Olmedo. "He will work for the whole country, not just one class."
Around the corner, Jaime Arellano expressed the opposite view. "He will take the country into chaos," says Mr. Arellano, who owns a small construction business. He says Obrador's so-called "New Deal" programs will create jobs just for the sake of it - without providing a boost to the economy.
ELECTORAL CRISIS IN MEXICO AS TOP 2 DECLARE VICTORY
THE NEW YORK TIMES
JULY 3, 2006
MEXICO CITY,— Election officials declared Sunday that they could not immediately determine a winner in the tightest presidential race in the country's history. Minutes later, the two front runners each declared victory, setting in motion an electoral crisis.
The contest pitted Felipe Calderón, a conservative former energy minister backed by business leaders, against Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the firebrand leftist former mayor of Mexico City, supported mostly by the poor.
Mr. López Obrador said at a downtown hotel he would respect the decision of the election institute even if he lost by one vote. Yet in the same breath he maintained he was convinced he had won by 500,000 votes. "This result is irreversible," he said.
Appearing before supporters a few minutes later at his party headquarters, Mr. Calderón rattled off the results of several surveys of voters leaving the polls and counts of key districts that showed he had won. "There is not the slightest doubt that we have won the election," he said.
Surveys of polling stations by election officials showed the contest was too close to call, and they urged people to remain calm until official results could be reported. The only thing clear was that a third candidate, Roberto Madrazo, the former governor of Tabasco State, was trailing the two front-runners.
CALDERON ACCUSTOMED TO BEATING THE ODDS
THE MIAMI HERALD
JUL. 03, 2006
MEXICO CITY - Felipe Calderon's apparent come-from-behind victory in Mexico's presidential election is no surprise to his supporters. After all, they note, few expected him to win his party's nomination over opposition from President Vicente Fox, who had another candidate in mind.
But Calderon won the National Action Party's primary, a victory that earned him the nickname "The Disobedient Son." He then proceeded to distance himself from the president, fought openly with the head of his party, and struggled to find a message that could chink away at his main rival, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who had a seemingly insurmountable 10-point lead in opinion polls.
"I was not the favorite," Calderon said in a huge understatement during a television interview on Monday.
But Calderon proved an able campaigner and a good strategist, and with more than 95 percent of the vote counted, appeared likely to eke out a victory by just under 1 percentage point.
If his election is confirmed after a recount on Wednesday, Calderon would become Mexico's youngest president. Now 43, he would be 44 when sworn into office on Dec. 1.
FORMER RULING PARTY SLIPS TO 3RD
THE MIAMI HERALD
JUL. 03, 2006
MEXICO CITY - While the photo finish in Mexico's presidential election left the winner in dispute on Monday, there nonetheless was a clear loser: the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
The PRI shaped modern Mexico. From 1929 to 2000, every Mexican president had been a member. Until recent years, nearly every governor and most members of congress were party stalwarts. Through patronage and pressure, it controlled unions and peasant farmers, shoeshine stands and luggage porters. It effectively coerced the vote of average Mexicans, and the country's biggest businesses were loyal to it. Its colors were the same as those of the Mexican flag - green, white and red.
Now it seems in free fall. Its presidential candidate, Roberto Madrazo, won less than 22 percent of the vote. Its candidate for mayor of Mexico City, Beatriz Paredes, was crushed by nearly two to one.
Adding to the insult, Madrazo represents the party's old guard and Paredes, the newer generation. Both wings of the party were roundly rejected by voters Sunday.
The results were welcome news to many Mexicans who endured decades of one-party, often heavy-handed rule at the hands of the PRI. Many Mexicans have resented the PRI since the 1988 elections, when a computer crash resulted in a narrow PRI victory and gave the appearance of a stolen election.
Now they wonder if the PRI is finished.
ONE ELECTION, TWO "WINNERS" FOR NOW...
THE WASHINGTON POST
JULY 4,2006
I'm the new president.
No, I'm the new president.
That's essentially the message from the two grown men vying to run Mexico. It would be an amusing version of a sandbox squabble if there wasn't so much at stake.
In a disturbing replay of the 2000 presidential contest in the United States, Mexicans awakened Monday to discover they do not have a verdict from Sunday's national election on who will succeed Vicente Fox as the leader of this nation of more than 100 million people. Words like "recount" and "tribunal" were flying. And behind the scenes, the campaigns spoke ominously of lost ballots, no ballots or tampered ballots.
The New York Times and Chicago Tribune have declared an "electoral crisis," while Mexican commentators have latched onto the phrase "worst case scenario." The headline from one blogger on the Guardian's Web site was equally hyperbolic -- "Grand Theft Mexico."
Campaign Conexión is keeping calm, having lived through one of these just six years ago, when Al Gore and George W. Bush duked it out in Florida for 37 of the longest days of my life. The American Republic survived, in the end. Perhaps Mexico's political pros learned from our 2000 mess, as there has been a thrilling display of political chutzpah down here with conservative Felipe Calderón and leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador each declaring -- repeatedly and in several venues -- that he is the winner.
PRESIDENTIAL RACE REFLECTS A MEXICO TORN
THE MIAMI HERALD
JUL. 04, 2006
MEXICO CITY - The front lines in the battle over Mexico's presidency run from the slums ringing Mexico City to the palatial homes of the capital's richest neighborhoods.
With Felipe Calderon vowing to continue the ruling party's free-market economic policies and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador promising to govern for the poor, the still-disputed race has laid bare Mexico's class divisions, putting painful, centuries-old inequalities at the top of the national agenda.
Mexico is now home to at least 10 billionaires, but half of its 103 million people live in poverty - a social and cultural gulf that was the cornerstone of Lopez Obrador's campaign.
Like it or not, the next leader faces the overwhelming task of making the country more egalitarian before things explode.
"Mexico is a time bomb," said Sergio Ernesto Josue, a 65-year-old former chauffeur with stained and broken teeth. "All these people have made their fortunes off this country. Mexico has the natural resources, but they've been very poorly distributed. Those on top have set a bad example for what this country could be."
It remains in doubt who will succeed President Vicente Fox, whose single six-year term ends on Dec. 1. Violent street protests seemed possible as Lopez Obrador challenged Calderon's apparent victory Tuesday, demanding a vote-by-vote recount. A preliminary count gave Calderon a 400,000-vote lead, but electoral officials can't declare a winner before an official tally beginning Wednesday.
CALDERÓN CLAIMS WIN; FOE SAYS NO
THE MIAMI HERALD
Jul. 04, 2006
Conservative Felipe Calderón claimed an insurmountable lead Monday in Mexico's closest presidential race in modern history, but his populist rival, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, began exploring plans for a potentially lengthy challenge.
Nevertheless, the air of crisis, which had reigned late Sunday when both candidates declared themselves victorious in fiery speeches, seemed to ease as nearly complete but unofficial returns showed Calderón clinging to a victory margin of almost 400,000 votes, or one percentage point.
Mexico's financial markets returned their best performance since May, with the Mexico City stock market rising 4.8 percent and the peso rising 2.2 percent against the dollar.
López Obrador, who had declared his victory "irreversible" on Sunday, issued more conciliatory statements, even as his top aides raised questions about voting irregularities and promised to show "hard evidence" of their victory.
"I'm always going to act in a responsible manner," López Obrador said in an interview with Televisa. "If we lose the election, I will accept it. If we win, even if it's by one or two votes, I am going to defend the triumph."
CONSERVATIVE HAS SLIGHT EDGE IN MEXICO VOTE
THE NEW YORK TIMES
JULY 4, 2006
MEXICO CITY, July 3 — Mexico's two leading candidates positioned themselves on Monday for a fight after electoral authorities said Sunday's presidential election was so close it would take at least two days to carefully sift the returns.
Unofficial results from more than 98 percent of all polling places showed Felipe Calder ón, the fiscal conservative backed by big business, with a lead of one percentage point over Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the fiery leftist whose campaign championed the country's poor.
Several political and financial analysts said they believed that Mr. Calderón's 384,000-vote lead, narrow as it was, was unlikely to be reversed, with only about 800,000 more votes to be tallied, but Mr. López Obrador said that the preliminary tally was flawed and that he planned to challenge it in court.
In the meantime, the way the candidates manage themselves and their supporters will determine whether the stalemate strengthens or weakens Mexico's young democracy.
MEXICO GIRDS FOR LEGAL BATTLE AS ELECTION YIELDS A NEAR TIE
THE WASHINGTON POST
JULY 4, 2006
MEXICO CITY, July 3 -- Felipe Calderón, a free-trade booster who wants to increase Mexico's presence in the global economy, held an ultra-thin lead of one percentage point over populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador in preliminary presidential election tallies released Monday.
Teams of lawyers are girding for a massive challenge of the results, threatening a crisis reminiscent of the disputed 2000 U.S. presidential election. Legal experts and campaign strategists here say the winner of Sunday's ballot might not be officially declared for up to two months.
A preliminary, uncertified count by Mexico's electoral authority shows Calderón with 36.38 percent of the vote and López Obrador with 35.34 percent. But the electoral authority, which will begin its official count on Wednesday, will eventually cede control of the contest to a special elections court.
The elections court, known as the Federal Judicial Electoral Tribunal, has until Sept. 6 to certify a winner and has powers equivalent to those of the U.S. Supreme Court as the final arbiter of election disputes.
MARKETS PLACE BET ON CALDERÓN
THE MIAMI HERALD
JUL. 04, 2006
MEXICO CITY - Mexican financial markets surged Monday anticipating something election officials were unwilling to confirm: that fiscally conservative Felipe Calderón had won the presidency.
The nation was on edge waiting for the country's election institute to declare a winner in Sunday's vote, an announcement that could be days away.
But Mexico's stock market, currency and bonds rallied sharply on news that Calderón was leading over his leftist rival by a seemingly insurmountable 380,000 votes with more than 37 million counted.
"It seems that they're declaring him the winner," said Carlos Gonzalez, an analyst at IXE brokerage in Mexico City, referring to local markets' reaction to Calderón's lead.
Calderón and leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador have both declared victory, but according to results from 98.01 percent of polling places, Calderón had 36.37 percent to López Obrador's 35.37 percent.
The Federal Electoral Institute, however, said the results were in no way final and that it would not declare a winner until an official tally of tens of thousands of ballot boxes that it was not even starting until Wednesday.
MEXICO'S LEFTIST PARTY DEMANDS A RECOUNT
THE MIAMI HERALD
JUL. 04, 2006
MEXICO CITY - The party of leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador demanded a ballot-by-ballot recount Tuesday in Mexico's closest-ever presidential race, claiming vote counts were manipulated and renewing fears of violent protests if the fiery politician doesn't get his way.
Lopez Obrador's demand for a full recount of all 41 million votes cast in Sunday's election set up a possible marathon showdown that could go to Mexico's electoral courts, stirring memories of the bitter Florida recount in the 2000 U.S. presidential race.
"We are going to launch a battle for the legitimacy of the election," said Leonel Cota, president of Lopez Obrador's leftist Democratic Revolution Party, while the candidate trailed conservative Felipe Calderon by about 1 percentage point in preliminary tallies.
"We are convinced of the triumph of our candidate," said Lopez Obrador campaign manager Jesus Ortega. "We will demand a recount vote by vote, report by report, polling place by polling place."
At the close of voting Sunday, volunteers at tens of thousands of polling places counted the ballots in each box and attached a report, sending it to district headquarters.
A preliminary count of those tallies gave Calderon of the ruling National Action Party a 400,000-vote advantage over Lopez Obrador.
DOMINANT PARTY NOT DEAD BUT MAY BE WEAKENING
THE MIAMI HERALD
JUL. 04, 2006
MEXICO CITY - While the photo finish in Mexico's presidential election left the winner in dispute on Monday, there nonetheless was a clear loser: the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
The PRI shaped modern Mexico. From 1929 to 2000, every Mexican president had been a member. Until recent years, nearly every governor and most members of Congress were party stalwarts. Through patronage and pressure, it controlled unions and peasant farmers, shoeshine stands and luggage porters. It effectively coerced the vote of average Mexicans, and the country's biggest businesses were loyal to it. Its colors were the same as those of the Mexican flag -- green, white and red.
ON THE DECLINE
Now it seems in free fall. Its presidential candidate, Roberto Madrazo, received less than 22 percent of the vote. Its candidate for mayor of Mexico City, Beatriz Paredes, was crushed by nearly 2-1.
Adding to the insult, Madrazo represents the party's old guard, and Paredes the newer generation. Both wings of the party were roundly rejected by voters Sunday.
The results were welcome news to many Mexicans who endured decades of one-party, often heavy-handed rule by the PRI. Many Mexicans have resented the PRI since the 1988 elections, when a computer crash resulted in a narrow PRI victory and gave the appearance of a stolen election.
Now they wonder if the PRI is finished.
HERTY LEWITES, 66, EX-SANDINISTA, DIES
THE NEW YORK TIMES
JULY 4, 2006
Herty Lewites, a contender in the race for the Nicaraguan presidency and an innovative minister of tourism under the Sandinistas, died Sunday of a heart attack in Managua. He was 66.
His death was confirmed by President Enrique Bolaños.
At the age of 19, Mr. Lewites joined the rebellion against the dynastic Somoza government. He later joined the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front.
In the 1970's, the Sandinistas sent him to California with the assignment of smuggling guns to Nicaragua. After several successful runs, carrying weapons concealed in trucks, he was arrested by United States agents and spent six months in federal prison.
After the Sandinistas won their revolutionary war in 1979, Mr. Lewites was appointed minister of tourism. He won fame and funds by opening beach resorts and "dollar stores" where diplomats and other foreigners could buy imported goods otherwise unavailable in Nicaragua.
When the Sandinistas lost power in an election in 1990 amid charges of corruption and sexual misconduct against their leader, Daniel Ortega, Mr. Lewites remained popular, especially after he opened an amusement park called Hertylandia.
MORALES SUFFERS SETBACKS IN KEY VOTES
THE MIAMI HERALD
JUL. 04, 2006
LA PAZ, Bolivia - (AP) -- Compromise hasn't always come easily to Evo Morales, who led street protests that drove two presidents from office before winning the job himself. Now he will have to cut deals with bitter political foes if he wants his populist revolution codified in a new constitution.
Five months into Morales' presidency, voters chose a National Assembly on Sunday that will overhaul this corruption-tainted nation's constitution.
But Morales' allies failed to win the two-thirds majority needed to solidify their attempt to remake Bolivia. And voters in four of Bolivia's nine states dealt Morales another blow by opting overwhelmingly for greater political and economic autonomy, unofficial results showed.
Morales didn't seek consensus when he nationalized Bolivia's natural gas industry and began distributing untilled land to poor peasants. Now he will need it if he's to push an agenda that includes distributing Bolivia's wealth more equitably and ending centuries of discrimination against the indigenous majority.
His Movement Toward Socialism Party won 135 seats in the 255-member assembly, compared with 64 seats for the main opposition party, Podemos, according to a sampling of ballots at more than 1,000 polling stations done by a subsidiary of British polling firm MORI International Group. Smaller opposition parties split the remainder. The MORI sample had a 1 percent margin of error.
First official results, released on Monday, indicated a MAS victory, but with only 2 percent of the vote counted were not a reliable reflection of the vote.
PHOTO FINISH IN MEXICO
EDITORIAL
WASHINGTON POST
JULY 4, 2006
MEXICO'S cliffhanger presidential election is both an achievement and a severe test for its emerging democracy. More than 40 million people, or 60 percent of the electorate, cast ballots, and the independent Federal Election Institute responsibly refrained from declaring a winner after its quick count Sunday suggested a close finish between conservative Felipe Calderón and leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador. In a sign of how much Mexico's political system has changed, the candidate of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, which routinely rigged Mexican elections into the 1980s, placed a distant third.
The danger lies in the fact that neither of the leading candidates demonstrated the restraint of the election institute. Both claimed victory Sunday night and continued to do so yesterday despite the lack of clarity in the official results. Mr. Calderón had more justification, since he was ahead by some 400,000 votes, or about one percentage point, with 98 percent of the ballots counted. Yet both he and Mr. López Obrador suggested that the tallies of the vote by their own parties mattered as much or more than those of the election institute. Mr. López Obrador said he would accept defeat "if in the count we conduct, it turns out that the final result does not favor us."
CHILE'S TEENAGERS MAKE THEIR VOICES HEARD
THE MIAMI HERALD
JUL. 04, 2006
SANTIAGO, Chile - They call themselves the "penguins" for their white-on-dark school uniforms, but what 700,000 Chilean high school kids have pulled off in recent days signals the emergence of a new generation in a nation transformed from dictatorship to democracy.
Marching in the streets and occupying schools, the teenagers' three-week revolt against their decrepit education system became known as the "Penguin Revolution," Chile's biggest protest since democracy was restored in 1990.
Chile's teenagers, the first generation born in the twilight of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's 17-year military dictatorship, have discovered strength in numbers, winning $200 million in new spending - a 2.78 percent increase in the annual education budget - and representation on a council that will propose sweeping reforms.
"The students have learned the power of having a voice," sociologist Manuel Antonio Garreton said.
It's all the more striking in a nation that had been cowed into silence by a dictatorship during which 3,100 people died or disappeared. The student protests have emboldened other groups - health care workers staging a one-day nationwide strike Tuesday for better working conditions, victims of violence demanding justice, even drivers upset about gasoline prices.
Felipe Anabalon, 18, says his parents were at school during the dictatorship and could not demonstrate "because they could have been killed."
MEXICAN ELECTION OFFICIALS REVIEW VOTE
THE MIAMI HERALD
JUL. 05, 2006
MEXICO CITY - A review of Mexico's closest presidential race in history Wednesday is a key test for an electoral system that helped reverse decades of ballot-rigging and has been championed as an example for emerging democracies.
A preliminary count of Sunday's election showed Felipe Calderon, of the conservative ruling National Action Party, leading by just 1 percentage point over leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolutionary Party.
Because of the closeness of the race, however, the Federal Electoral Institute won't declare a winner until completing a review required by law that begins Wednesday and could take days.
The count will be crucial to proving the election was clean in a nation that emerged only six years ago from 71 years of one-party rule sustained by widespread vote-rigging.
"Such a close race is a nightmare scenario," said Ted Lewis, an election observer for the San Francisco-based Global Exchange. "If the ruling party wins by a hair, a lot of people will jump to the conclusion that something is amiss."
Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor with fervent support among the poor, has claimed the preliminary count was manipulated and his party has demanded a ballot-by-ballot recount. His claims have stoked fears of violent protests and raised the specter of a showdown reminiscent of the Florida recount in the 2000 U.S. presidential race.
MEXICAN VOTE IN LIMBO
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
JULY 05, 2006
MEXICO CITY – Three days after the polls closed, Mexico is in political limbo - with the presidential vote still too close to call, and the two top candidates claiming victory.
The standoff, reminiscent of the Bush-Gore election aftermath in 2000, raises the prospect of protests and court challenges that could take weeks to resolve. It could also further polarize a divided electorate after months of negative campaigning.
With returns from more than 98 percent of polling stations in at press time, conservative candidate Felipe Calderón had a 1-percentage-point lead over left-leaning Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has called for a recount to find what he believes are millions of missing votes.
Preliminary official results are expected Wednesday - at which point a recount is set to begin. By law, this process will go on day and night until a final result is reached.
Mr. Obrador would have to see a dramatic swing in the remaining polling stations, or a vast discrepancy in the recount to catch up - but still, Luis Carlos Ugalde, President of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), has refused to call the election, warning that the race is still too close.
This has not, however, stopped the candidates themselves from calling it.
"According to our statistics, we have won the presidency," Obrador roared Sunday night. "The triumph is irreversible."
HOPE FOR COLOMBIAN HOSTAGES VIA AIRWAVES
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
JULY 05, 2006
BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA – There were 800 kidnappings reported in Colombia last year.
That's 44 percent less than the 1,440 who were snatched in 2004, which, in turn, was 32 percent fewer than the 2,122 abducted in 2003. President Álvaro Uribe's office, which has made combating the scourge a priority (and gives out these statistics), is justifiably proud.
But for Claudia Cabellero, the upbeat statistics are of little comfort. She wants her husband Francisco home. She has not seen him since he was kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) four years ago.
"I pray to the Virgin to give you patience and hope," she says, addressing him on 'Voices of the Kidnapped,' a unique weekly call-in radio program here.
She is unsure where her husband is, or whether he is even still alive. But she calls in almost every week, anyway, just in case. "God willing you can hear me, my love," she says.
Newly reelected President Uribe - whose own father was killed by the FARC during a botched kidnapping in the 1980s - has made security a cornerstone of his administration. The success of Uribe's hard-hitting campaign against leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries can be measured, in part, by the fact that Colombia has finally shed its notoriety as the kidnap capital of the world. (That distinction now belongs to Mexico, where there were more than 3,000 kidnappings last year, according to the US State Department.)
DRUG MAFIA'S INFILTRATION OF MILITARY GROWS CLEARER
THE MIAMI HERALD.
JUL. 05, 2006
BOGOTA - It was a set of killings like few others in Colombia's long and violent history.
Many of the 11 dead were members of an elite police unit raiding a drug lord's lair. The shooters were army soldiers allegedly on the payroll of the accused trafficker, Diego Montoya, who is next to Osama Bin Laden on the FBI's most wanted list.
The military called it a "friendly fire" incident. But the attorney general said it was a "massacre," and when a military tribunal tried to handle the case, his office took over the case in a rare show of legal muscle.
Indeed, the scandal surrounding the death of 10 members of the judicial police -- known as DIJIN, its Spanish acronym -- and an informant in early June has not just damaged the reputation of the army and the government, but raised questions over traffickers' infiltration of the government at a time when Colombia is seeking continued U.S. aid for the fight against illicit drugs.
COMMUNIST PARTY BOARD RESURRECTED
THE MIAMI HERALD
JUL. 05, 2006
HAVANA - Cuba's Communist Party on Tuesday resurrected a powerful executive council to shore up its authority and reassert ideological influence as President Fidel Castro nears his 80th birthday.
U.S. pressure has been building for sweeping democratic changes when he dies.
The resurrection of the party's secretariat is the latest move aimed at strengthening the island's political structure for an eventual future without Castro, who has ruled Cuba for 47 years and turns 80 on Aug. 13.
Although Castro appears healthy and there are no signs he plans to retire, recent moves on the island indicate a concentrated effort to strengthen the rest of the communist leadership while he is still alive.
Cuba's previous Communist Party secretariat was dissolved 15 years ago as a necessary cost-saving move amid an economic crisis caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had been the island's key economic and political ally.
The resurrection comes at a time when communist officials say the U.S. government is intensifying efforts to promote regime change on the island after Castro is gone.
VOTE-BY-VOTE RECOUNT IS DEMANDED IN MEXICO
THE NEW YORK TIMES
JULY 5, 2006
MEXICO CITY, July 4 — The Mexican electoral crisis deepened Tuesday, as the leftist candidate demanded a vote-by-vote recount and election officials acknowledged that up to three million votes had not been tallied in the preliminary results.
The ballots counted so far showed the conservative, Felipe Calderón, with the narrowest of leads, fewer than 400,000 votes, over his leftist opponent, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Mr. López Obrador's challenge made it clear that this country was about to live through its own version of the drawn-out legal battle that Americans experienced in the 2000 presidential race. Mexico's dispute, however, instead of being focused on one state, could be nationwide.
On the day before the Federal Electoral Institute, or I.F.E., begins its final official tabulation of an estimated 43 million ballots, questions were raised about the uncounted votes, missing tally sheets, nullified votes and ballots left blank that were registered in the preliminary count.
Some supporters of Mr. López Obrador, the populist former mayor of Mexico City, began to grumble about the possibility of fraud and manipulation of the counting system, an inevitable response in a country with a long history of fraudulent elections.
WEEKS OF UNCERTAINTY LOOMING OVER RECOUNT
THE MIAMI HERALD
JUL. 05, 2006
MEXICO CITY - Discovery of 3.5 million uncounted votes in Mexico's disputed presidential election cast doubt on early projections showing conservative Felipe Calderón in the lead, raising fears of prolonged uncertainty and political unrest.
Hinting at insider corruption and citing a series of voting "irregularities," advisors to leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador are demanding a manual recount of every single vote and did not rule out street protests to ratchet up pressure on federal election authorities.
"You cannot come to a final outcome if you do not count all the votes," said Manuel Camacho Solís, a top López Obrador aide. "We are going to demand that the votes are counted. . . . We have the right to go to the streets, and we have the right to express our opinion with full freedom."
A simple recount begins today, but a full-blown election contest could drag Mexico through weeks of uncertainty and tension.
Calderón's ruling National Action Party, or PAN, dismissed the allegations of irregularities, portraying López Obrador as a sore loser.
The standoff has left Mexico the equivalent of one hanging chad away from a Latin American version of the disputed 2000 U.S. presidential election -- only with a greater potential for unrest among the country's poor masses, who already are receptive to the idea of fraudulent elections.
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