Andrés Manuel López Obrador comes out swinging. The little guy form Tabasco, seeking demagogue status, has announced that he will challenge the election. The word he used was "impugnará" which can be translated as "will challenge" or as "will refute". If he is refuting the election as opposed to challenging the results, that's a bit more serious.
He said that neither the federal government nor his opponent, Felipe Calderon, had delivered democracy and that the performance of the IFE was in doubt. He has called on his supporters to gather in the zócalo (central square) in Mexico City on Saturday to listen to the great one (himself) speak. Oh wonderful, that's going to be messy. Since the PRD has political control of Mexico City and the surrounding state of Mexico, I'm sure they will let his aficionados run amok. Marcelo Ebrard, the newly elected PRD mayor of Mexico City, will not allow a confrontation to take place between the police and his own political party's supporters. That would look bad on TV. I'm waiting to hear from Chavez from Caracas and Fidel from Havana.
Oh, by the way, with 99.52% of the Actas reported, Calderon's lead has grown to 0.45%.
OK, more from AMLO's speech:
". . . nuestra demanda para que se cuenten los votos, no podemos aceptar estos resultados, no podemos reconocer estos resultados, hay muchas irregularidades".So, here we go. I feel really bad for the Mexican people today. An electoral process that seems to be the most transparent and efficient that I have ever witnessed conducted an election that, unfortunately, was so close that the results will never be accepted by the loser. Never.
Translation: "we demand that they recount the votes, we cannot accept these results, we cannot recognise these results, there were many irregularities."
What is doubly unfortunate here is that AMLO could parlay this loss into a powerful cabinet position for himself as well as other PRDistas. From those presidentially appointed positions, he could influence his party's representatives in the House and Senate to vote with the PAN to ram through the Congress the reforms that Mexico so desperately needs to set its economy aright. But he won't do that, it appears. Ala Al Gore and John Kerry, he will spend his time and his party's resources in bitter attack, recriminations, hindrance and obstruction.
"Ayer estuve viendo la televisión, la verdad, la verdad que saben muy bien ellos que no hay nada qué festejar, muy forzado todo, no hay alegría, no hay certidumbre porque ellos saben lo que hicieron."
Translation: "Yesterday I was watching television and truly, truly they (the IFE, PAN, Calderon, Bush, Mark in Mexico) know very well that there is nothing to celebrate, there is no joy (in Mudville), everything was forced, there is no certainty because they know what they did."
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TAGS: Mexican presidential election, AMLO
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