Globe and Mail : It's official: Calderon wins Mexican vote

It's official: Calderon wins Mexican vote

ALAN FREEMAN | September 6, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Felipe Calderon formally became Mexico's president-elect yesterday, but his leftist rival wasn't accepting defeat, threatening the nation of 107 million with continued political uncertainty.

Mexico's Federal Electoral Tribunal announced that Mr. Calderon, a conservative former energy minister and political ally of President Vicente Fox, had won the July 2 election by 233,831 votes of the 41.6 million cast, a margin of just 0.56 per cent.

In a unanimous ruling, the seven-judge tribunal acknowledged there had been irregularities in the election, but said they were not significant enough to upset the result.

The panel's ruling is final. Mr. Calderon is due to be sworn in for a six-year term on Dec. 1.
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Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mr. Calderon's populist rival, has argued for the past two months that the election was stolen from him, and vowed to continue a campaign of civil disobedience to overturn the result, including a blockade of Mexico City's main commercial thoroughfare that began in late July.

"I express my decision to reject the ruling of the electoral tribunal and refuse to recognize the one who presents himself as the holder of federal executive power," Mr. Lopez Obrador told a few hundred supporters in Mexico City.

But analysts believe that his street protests are in the process of fizzling as Mexicans tire of the disruptions, including last Friday's incident at the Mexican Congress when legislators from Mr. Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) prevented Mr. Fox from giving his annual state of the nation speech to a joint session. Mr. Fox instead gave the speech on TV.

"My guess is that his movement will lose momentum during the following weeks and after the decision of the tribunal, many of the political allies of Lopez Obrador will say that's enough and won't accompany him in his movement any more," said Jorge Chabat, director of international studies at Mexico City's Centre for Research and Education in Economics.

Mr. Chabat said opinion polls had shown that up to 70 per cent of Mexicans believe the July 2 vote was fair. He predicted Mr. Lopez Obrador would continue to be an irritant, but said he is not a fundamental threat to Mexican democracy.

"He will be a pain in the neck, he will be bothering for a while," Mr. Chabat said, but he will not succeed in making Mexico ungovernable.

George Grayson, a political scientist at the College of William and Mary in Virginia and author of a critical biography of Mr. Lopez Obrador, also believes that the movement to overturn the election result is losing speed.

"Preventing the President from giving the Sept. 1 speech was just another black eye for the PRD," Prof. Grayson said. "It reinforces their image of being irresponsible, violence-prone rabble rousers. Mexico is an extremely conservative country."

Mr. Lopez Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City, has said that if he was not declared the victor, the election result should be overturned. He has threatened to set up a so-called parallel government.

His party has rejected suggestions of opening a dialogue with Mr. Calderon and his National Action Party (PAN). "The only possibility for a dialogue with the right's candidate would be for him to refuse the gift of the presidency, which he did not earn at the ballot box," said Gerardo Fernandez Norona, spokesman for the PRD.

In its ruling, the election tribunal criticized Mr. Fox's comments during the campaign, which were clearly aimed at boosting Mr. Calderon's candidacy. The tribunal also stated there was "no logical connection" to the contention by Mr. Lopez Obrador that TV ads by businesses backing Mr. Calderon had subliminal messages favouring the candidate.

Daniel Lund, a Mexico City pollster who takes a more sympathetic view of Mr. Lopez Obrador, agrees that Mr. Calderon's challenge will be to reach out and seek support from his ideological rivals while distancing himself from Mr. Fox and from the private sector.

"Felipe Calderon comes into office filled with invoices," Mr. Lund said. "He has to figure out whether these invoices tie his hands or whether he can rule as a creative executive.

"The election didn't divide the country but the election sharpened and clarified historic divisions and unhappiness. This is an unhappy country."