Sham democracy in Mexico

Submitted by Anon on 16 July, 2006 - 11:04

BY Paul Hampton

THE Mexican elections on 2 July were fixed in favour of the conservative candidate, according to a host of reports by observers.

Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) has declared himself the winner with 35.88%. But the main challenger, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the liberal nationalist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), given 35.31%, has said a fraud has been committed. The old ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) came a distant third.

The whole thing looks like a repeat of the 1988 election, when Cuauhtemoc Cardenas of the PRD was “beaten” by Carlos Salinas of the PRI. The PRI ran Mexico continuously from the 1920s until 2000, when Vicente Fox of the PAN won the presidency. There was no doubt of the fraud perpetrated in 1988 – and the same claims are being made again by observers on the ground and by commentators such as Greg Palast.

López Obrador has cited many irregularities including manipulating preliminary vote totals; initially never counting 3 millions votes and then in hindsight only counting 2.5 million of them; ignoring 900,000 supposed void, blank and annulled ballots declared null, discarded and never included in the official totals; and never counting over 700,000 additional votes from missing precincts, denying the right to vote to many voters in strong PRD areas.

The best of the left, including the Zapatistas and some Marxists called for abstention in the election. They argued that López Obrador was too closely associated with Carlos Slim, Mexico’s richest man, and Manuel Camacho Solis, a politician associated with former president Salinas. They also argued that López Obrador has never challenged the “official” PRI-orientated unions or supported attempts to democratise the labour movement in Mexico City when he was mayor.

However the left has rightly joined the chorus of anger at the fraud. Last Saturday López Obrador called a demonstration in Mexico City, attended by over 200,000 people. Demonstrators called for a recount and the electoral tribunal has until September to issue a ruling.

The demonstration was also backed by teachers in Oaxaca, who have been strike since May. The encampment created by National Education Workers' Union (SNTE) in the central city square is still there despite police attempts to remove it, and the strike continues despite the election.

The SNTE has a militant history, taking strike action in Oaxaca every year since 1980. Its demands include higher wages, increased construction of schools in remote villages and free breakfast and uniforms for every child in Oaxaca state. Teachers also want the corrupt PRI governor to resign.

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