Today (Wednesday 9 Aug) the official recount begins for 11,829 voting booths (out of 130,477) around Mexico, by order of the highest Electoral Court. Liberal coalition candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO for short) officially trails in the vote to right-wing candidate Felipe Calderon Hinojosa by a slight 0.58%, or 243,000+ votes out of roughly 42 million. AMLO and his supporters demand a full recount, rejecting the large partial recount as insufficient.
Meanwhile AMLO continues to speak out against what he and others allege as a fraud and government intervention to "impose" Calderon into power, and protests by supporters of the candidate and PRD party continue. Yesterday for PRD and anti-fraud / pro-full-recount activists "briefly took over highway toll booths Tuesday, giving thousands of motorists free passage to the capital as they escalated their demands for a full recount in July´s close election".
Activists carry signs for a full recount ("Vote by Vote, Polling Station by Polling Station, No to Fraud") while blocking three toll booths on a toll road for some time yesterday.
Today, protesters have blocked entrances to three corporate bank headquarters, Bancomer, Banamex and HSBC ; many corporations directly or indirectly backed the right-wing Calderon, so although I haven't heard the protesters' reasoning, I would assume that it is to highlight that point as well as to escalate tensions in favor of a complete recount.
In U.S. coverage, the Washington Post will host a live discussion on the recount and related matters today at 12 noon:
Is Mexico Nearing an Election Resolution?
With Deadline Approaching, Runner-up Remains Defiant
John M. Ackerman
Professor, Institute for Legal Research, National Autonomous University of Mexico
Wednesday, August 9, 2006; 12:00 PM
John Ackerman, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico's Institute for Legal Research, will be online Wednesday, Aug. 9, at noon ET to discuss the impact of continuing protests in Mexico City in support of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and a refusal by Mexico's election tribunal to conduct a full vote recount.
Felipe Calderon has declared himself the winner of Mexico's July 2 presidential elections, despite his opponent's refusal to concede. For the past week, Lopez Obrador has lived in a tent in Mexico's city Zocalo square along with tens of thousands of demonstrators. Lopez Obrador has said he will not accept the results of a partial recount, even after a special election court rejected his request for a full recount. The court must declare a winner by Sept. 6.
...Ackerman has written for various publications, including the New York Times and Mexico's Reforma newspaper. He is a senior consultant to the World Bank and vice president of the International Association of Administrative Law. He is also coordinator of the Research Program on Accountability, Legality and the Rule of Law at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Mexico City.
Meanwhile, the Mexico News section of the Miami Herald, carrying content from Mexico's El Universal, had this overview of the downtown sit-in's:
PRD-led 'mega sit-in' features festive ambience
The street blockades in downtown Mexico City look like a street party; the front lines of a push to overturn a presidential election seem more block party than revolution
Watching "Scarface." Listening to punk rock. Playing soccer on synthetic grass. Dancing on wooden crates.
The front lines of a push to overturn a presidential election seem more block party than revolution.
As supporters of left-leaning Andrés Manuel López Obrador take to the streets - and stay there - it is clear there is not much angst or suffering among them, other than aches from sleeping on pallets or cobblestones.
People have set up camp for the long term in the middle of the city, saying they´ll protest in shifts and take time off from their families or their jobs to force a recount of the July 2 race, which López Obrador lost to Felipe Calderón, according to unverified results.
López Obrador has claimed victory, accused election officials of stealing it by fraud and asked supporters to carry out an array of civil disobedience measures.
"I am headed to my new home," said Carmen Quintano Arcón, 44, a housewife among the newest arrivals in the early-morning hours Wednesday. "Whatever it takes."
CALL FOR RESOLUTION
Outgoing President Vicente Fox called on the city government to find a way to peacefully end the protest, which has gridlocked traffic and heightened tension.
Even some of López Obrador´s highest profile supporters say he´s gone too far.
The sit-in includes thousands of people, thinly distributed along four miles of a major city thoroughfare and thickening the closer it gets to the densely packed central square called the Zócalo.
The plaza, given its maze of pallets, nylon tents, candles, gas- powered stoves and fencing, would seem a fire marshals´ nightmare. López Obrador´s campaign staff contends they´ve got rules on when and how to use fire and there is no danger.
His living quarters separated by guards and metal fences, López Obrador has vowed to live in the Zócalo until a recount is ordered.
He awakens at dawn and makes daily visits to various encampments, where he shakes hands, hugs babies and people hang on his every word.
NO FORCE NECESSARY
Perhaps contributing to the laid-back atmosphere, his followers took over prime real estate not by force, but by concession.
No one got in their way. There were no soldiers, no riot police, and no clouds of tear gas.
In turn, the demonstrators threw no Molotov cocktails, didn´t loot any stores nor burn any tires.
"It was easy to take the city, very easy," said commentator Guadalupe Loeza, who has long been a López Obrador supporter.
She noted that demonstrators have been able to enjoy free food and been relaxed enough to sit around playing video games.
Even if there is no shortage of Mexicans who despise what López Obrador´s supporters are doing, the effort is underwritten by the city government, which is controlled by his Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).
It permits supporters to block traffic, steal electricity from power lines and erect miles of disaster- relief style tents. Police grin; city tanker trucks empty dozens of portable toilets; the mayor and mayor-elect march with López Obrador.
At times, football-field length stretches of the Paseo de La Reforma avenue are all but abandoned, with no one even sitting under canopy tents that serve as giant place holders.
"Right now, this is short term," said Manuel Carrazco, 45, a teacher. "If they do not do a recount, we will have to move to the other means of resistance," he said last week, such as blockading highways or surrounding the airport.
VARIED SUPPORT
A walk through López Obrador´s various tent cities offers a glimpse at the array of his supporters, much like a stroll through different ethnic communities in New York City.
There were the ladies in their mid-50s who sat around a table and looked at videos of themselves in López Obrador´s last march. Wearing fake hair braids and carrying wooden rifles, the women had dressed in clothing styled from the 1910 Mexican Revolution.
Then came an intricate mock graveyard fashioned from dirt, died wood shavings and 18 wooden crosses - each labeled with the names of Fox, Calderón and other despised political players.
"This sends a message that we will not let democracy die," said Carlos Daniel Torres, 45, a former city councilman who helped set up the display.
A few blocks away, a wiry singer literally screamed into a microphone as his group cranked out everything from hard-core punk rock to old-fashioned Rolling Stones.
Later came a miniature soccer field, complete with a ratty, green carpet and flanked by about a dozen miniature carnival rides for children.
Special education teacher Karina Figueroa, 30, stomped her heels and swirled her dress as she stood atop a wooden crate and was surrounded by more than a dozen acoustic guitarists.
"Dancing for democracy," she later said after she stepped down. "We are tired of being governed by people who impose their authority."
In a tent turned theater, Tony Montana, Al Pacino´s hot-tempered character in the 1983 classic, "Scarface," squared off with U.S. immigration officers as he spoke of the horrors of Cuba.
"There´s nothing you can do to me that Castro hasn´t already done," he says, his words translated in Spanish subtitles.
No one made a peep.
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