(MEX) Lopez Obrador will continue protests despite ruling to limit recount

[Poll_Blind]

Lopez Obrador will continue protests despite ruling to limit recount

MEXICO CITY - Defeated presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador vowed to continue his campaign of protests Saturday night after his petition for a total vote recount of the tight July 2 election was rejected by an electoral tribunal.

Speaking to several thousand supporters packed into the capital's historic square, the Zocalo, Lopez Obrador said he would announce specific measures Sunday morning.

The leftist former Mexico City mayor may call on followers to march through the city or stage sit-ins and blockades of strategic points, such as airports and highways.

"We have to keep resisting and struggling," he said to thunderous cheers and pumping fists of his supporters. "We are going to continue with our peaceful resistance movement. We do not want a privileged group treating the government as their service committee."

--snip--

The recount is scheduled to begin Wednesday and must be completed by the following Monday. The tribunal has until Sept. 6 to certify results of the election or order a new vote.

Lopez Obrador's supporters, many of whom come from Mexico's lower classes, started to mobilize as word of the tribunal's decision circulated.

More information, including the above, can be found in this thread. If you're not familiar with recent developments or what this issue is about, see this thread for a basic overview.

PB

[Say_What]

1. Too bad the US Sheeple don't have the moxy that Mexicans have

if they did Al Gore might be in his second term now and the world would be a much safer place.

From the article:

...Lopez Obrador supporters said they will remain camped out along the Paseo de la Reforma, blocking access to the city's main boulevard, for as long it takes.

"We're staying here until 100 percent of the vote is recounted," said Eduardo Juarez of Mexico State.

The recount is scheduled to begin Wednesday and must be completed by the following Monday. The tribunal has until Sept. 6 to certify results of the election or order a new vote.

Lopez Obrador's supporters, many of whom come from Mexico's lower classes, started to mobilize as word of the tribunal's decision circulated. Scattered groups of protesters chanted "Andres Manuel, hold on, the people are rising up" as colleagues penned new placards and banners with slogans such as, "We Demand 100 Percent of the Vote," and "We Do Not Accept the Decision."

[Sadie5]

2. Makes you wonder

If there is a Scalia, Harris or Blackwell trick up their sleeve. Remember Fox and Bush are pals. If the recount is incomplete when they stop counting the votes will go to whomever the Fox/Bush team selects.

[Say_What]

6. True, but the Mexican citizenry isn't gonna roll over and play dead

like the US citizenry did. They have the power to shut down bridges and highways and that's what they'll do--why? they have nothing to lose. I guess that's what's gonna have to happen in this country to motivate the Sheeple. Unfortunatley, they believe the *freedom and democracy* propanganda regurgitated by every corp-paid pol that comes down the pike.

Obrador was the front runner for most of the campaign and Calderon won the election by less than 0.6 percentage point, but he insists his victory was clean. I sorta don't think so...

More at this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/international/19mexico.html?ex=1300424400&en=c27b492cd46ba8d2&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

[rurallib]

3. Why even bother with the charade?

A partial recount will only be used to 'certify' Obrador's defeat. Hang in there AMLO! And take a lesson Dems for this fall Dems!

[papau]

4. Obrador needs recount in46000 out of 130000 precincts-gets 13000 recounted

López Obrador’s campaign is, in fact, seeking a recount of only those precincts where it found indications of fraud: a lot of them: 43,000, more or less. This extrapolation – if those precincts are counted vote-by-vote – would give his candidacy a victory of 243,000 votes.

300 electoral districts with 173 electoral districts in which Lopez Obrador's challenges have targeted 43,000 precincts out of Mexico's 130,000.
=================================================================================

a bit of prior media reports:

Building their case, Cota, other leaders of the PRD ,and the allied Labor party contended that more votes than voters were registered at 781 precincts. Also more votes than ballots were counted in 52,000 electoral tallies and, strangely, voter turnout in some places exceeded 100 percent. The results may not seem so miraculous if you take a look at these voter sheets. This is from a district in Guanajuato, which shows that Calderon picked up 192 votes, but Obrador, the challenger, got only 12. And here’s how this miraculous total can be explained. We were given a videotape of a poll worker, seen here stuffing ballots into the unguarded cardboard ballot box. Mexico has virtually zero ballot security in rural areas. There is no system for accounting for unused paper ballots. Stuffing them into the cardboard boxes is absurdly easy.Ramírez González of the PAN said that his leftist opponents are partly to blame for their poor showing. The PRD failed to recruit poll watchers for each of the state´s 6,100 precincts. At some of precincts in District 13, no PRD poll watcher signed the tally sheets. "They didn´t do the work necessary to take care of their votes," Ramírez González said. "That´s not the fault of their opponents."

[Vidar]

5. Viva Obrador!

[w4rma]

7. Neo-corporatists seem to be adverse to counting votes. (nt)

[PSPS]

8. Usual bias in the article

Defeated presidential candidate...

The leftist former Mexico City mayor...

[EFerrari]

10. Exactly. "Neo Con Secretary of War Rumsfeld . . ."

"Neo Con Secretary of State, Condi Rice, continued to impersonate a diplomat . . "

Bias, what bias.

[Robbien]

11. And how about that "will continue protests despite the ruling"

The ruling is not what the protesters were protesting for so of course they will continue the protests because of the ruling, not despite it. The misleading headline suggests the protesters are being unreasonable since they are still protesting inspite of being given what they wanted.

[EFerrari]

9. Why, on a site this big, does this post only have a few votes?

[Peace Patriot]

12. VERY INTERESTING conclusion, perhaps revealing whose running this game

for the Bushites in Mexico. Here it is...(end of the article)...

"Political experts saw the tribunal's decision as attempting to meet Lopez Obrador halfway without putting the integrity of the electoral system in doubt.

"'I see it as kind of a compromise outcome that responds to the heightened political tension in the country,' said Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, who leads the Mexico project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

"'To some extent, a vote-by-vote recount would have been a vote of no confidence in the system,' he said. 'This is now going to increase pressure on Lopez Obrador. Public opinion is going to see that the institutions are trying to respond responsibly, and he is going to be seen as acting out of blind political ambition.'"

-----------------------

Karl Rove's "talking points," 1, 2 and 3:

1. Here is how to paint Lopez Obrador with BLIND POLITICAL AMBITION--first, describe a full recount as a VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE "in the system"

2. Portray "the institutions" as "trying to respond responsibly" with a partial recount

3. Stoke public opinion with these lies to pressure Lopez to shut up, give up, stand down--OR HE WILL BE SMEARED AGAIN (they've already done Rovian smearing of Amlo)

----------------------

And this is how ARMAND PESCHARD-SVERDRUP, of the Mexico project at the CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES in WASHINGTON, D.C., SEES IT. ("I see it as...".) This is HIS cookery. And I expect that this is what we'll be hearing from the war profiteering corporate news monopolies IN UNISON as Amlo and his millions of supporters continue to protest.

-----------------------

This article was brought to you by McClatchey Newspapers, one of two news monopolies who moved in on Knight-Ridder--the ONLY reliable news service in the U.S. on Iraq invasion/war/occupation issues--in order to turn Knight-Ridder newspapers like the San Jose Mercury News (where this article was published) into rightwing shit-rags.

---------------------

I'm trying to evaluate writer Christina Hoag. She's old Knight-Ridder, but she sure has written some drivel about global free trade/WTO. For instance, in a prep article for the Miami WTO, she writes: "Other international trade meetings have been marred by anti-globalization groups, most notably the 1998 World Trade Organization summit in Seattle, which degenerated into a riot."

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:kQ5Bm8pnH7YJ:www.citizenstrade.org/pdf/herald_082903.pdf+christina+hoag&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=19&client=safari

It's the corporate news monopoly line on Seattle. She doesn't seem to be aware that it was deemed a POLICE riot in Seattle city hearings afterward, and the police chief was forced to resign. They frigging beat up a Seattle city councilman during those protests--after beating up on 10,000 peaceful, seated civil disobedience protesters all day long. It was the most magnificent, well-organized, effective non-violent protest I have ever witnessed. A few young anarchists and agents provocateurs broke some windows and burned trash cans downtown after 8 hours of police brutality. Guess what the evening news led with, to the exclusion of all else, including FIFTY THOUSAND people marching in the streets? It was also the most SLANDERED protest I've ever been involved in.

Hoag seems to have been on the side of the good guys in struggles against Latin American fascist governments (as in Guatemala).
http://www.newint.org/issue265/update.htm

She wrote a fairly decent in-depth news article on Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Circles (poor peoples' community power groups), with a story of the 2002 attempted coup. There is a little too much "balance" in it, if you know what I mean. (The tiny rich oil elite in Venezuela gets their views trumpeted like our rightwing does--way out of proportion to their numbers.) Hoag was based in Caracas for a time.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_18/b3781026.htm

Recently, Hoag (who often covers business stories--generally Hispanic-related) wrote a lengthy piece on Haim Saban--who has a personal media fortune of 2.8 billion. He brought "Power Rangers" from Japan to the US and did deals with the Fox media empire; and he just bought U.S. Span-lang TV, Univsion, the main corporate monopoly propaganda engine for the U.S. Span-speaking population, for 12.3 billion (a consortium). He will run Univision. (Saban is recent notorious for backing and funding Arnold Schwarzenegger; Saban a big Dem backer at one time; very pro-Israel, and, no doubt pro-Bush war, Egyptian-born, educated in Israel).
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/15097423.htm

Upshot: Seems to be a good reporter. Seems to have some standards. Has focused on the poor and the oppressed, and also covers big business (but not as an exposer of it). Sometimes slips on corporate-colored glasses. These subtle digs at Lopez Obrador ("Defeated presidential candidate," etc.) don't seem her style, and may be the bad McClatchey influence. Hard to say for sure. But the Rovian "talking points" (from Peschard-Sverdrup) seem over the top. It's a rotten AP formula for dissing peoples' movements (revealing, though--P-S may be a perp).

[ananda]

13. Whoa!

"We do not want a privileged group treating the government as their service committee."

You go guy!