Controversy around Mexico’s presidential elections
Three days after Mexico’s citizens calmly voted for the future of their country, an air of controversy is still being felt, mainly initiated by leftist losing party’s candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Most of the allegations are very similar of the ones he made in 2006 when he lost by the minimum margin to current president Felipe Calderon. Mexican citizens have grown tired of this kind of behavior and just want to move on. The country has bigger problems to attend than dealing with a man that will never be satisfied with the decision until he wins. Mexico is a country that’s been heavily crippled by a war against the cartels that has produced around 60,000 deaths in the current administration alone. This toll weighted big in the voters mind and it was reflected in the results.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) returned to power after a 12 year abscense giving it a shot to redeem themselves. Their reign as the lone government for 72 continuous years came to an end when Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN) beat them in the 2000 elections. The party’s been known as being corrupt and with dictator-like activities making them a sort of a threat to the first world aspirations of this country if they came back. After 12 years they are finally back. Mexicans decided that none of the current candidates was fit enough to stop the return of the PRI. The strategy employed was carefuly crafted, from the moment they chose their candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto to the moment the campaign ended. It was very reminiscent of Fox’s way to the top, probably used as a blue print for them to come back. It worked.
Leftist contender Obrador has now lost twice against different party’s. The Opinion of the mexicans has been made clear, they don’t want him as their president. Even if the 6.5% difference was overturned, the fact that 32% of the people voted for him means 68%. Maybe he is the best choice, maybe he isn’t, but in order for the country to move forward they need to stay together and work as a unity. Another controversy wont help them establish themselves as a serious player in the world economy sweepstakes, something that has been some sort of a dream ever since the Salinas de Gortari days.
Mexico is falling behind other Latin American countries, Chile and Brazil come to mind. These countries have changed their ways and have succeeded as new power houses in global economies. Mexico has a clear advantage over these countries as they’re closest to the number 1 economy in the world, something they don’t seem to take full advantage of. Lets hope they set their internal differences aside and start working as a team. The PRI, PAN and PRD have one thing in common, they are all full of mexican nationals, and that comes first when being faced to the world.
Posted on July 4, 2012, in Economy, International, News and tagged Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Enrique Peña Nieto, Felipe Calderon, Mexican Elections, mexico, Mexico Elects President, PRI, World Economy. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments.
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I’m a Canadian who has lived in Mexico for 12 years and witnessed the 2000, 2006 and now 2012 elections.
There is little doubt in my mind that the 2012 election was decided before the first vote was even counted. PRI had such confidence in their victory that they even announced “the win” in print 1.5 hrs after vote counting started and 15 min later they made the announcement on National TV – this with only 1% of the ballots counted…2 hrs before the IFE official “quick count” was announced.
In the current world of Smartphones it has been possible to publish many blatant IFE irregularities, interestingly enough all benefiting EPN and/or negatively impacting AMLO – whether it was a case of counting 81 votes as 801 vote for EPN in “Casilla” 5614 in Tultitlan or counting 129 votes as 29 votes for AMLO in “Casilla” 2937…thousands of these types of “errors” have now been documented photographically.
To believe these election results one has to believe either that of the 10 million new voters in this election only a very small percentage voted for AMLO and at least 7-8 Million new voters voted for PRI – OR – many millions of 2006 AMLO supporters converted to PRI along with 3 Million 2006 PAN supporters. After 71 years of oppressive rule by the PRI in the 20th century I have a very hard time even coming close to believing those figures.
However, that said, beyond the miscounting, the old practice of vote buying by PRI was well documented and undoubtedly in effect. Protest marches of peasants demanding payment have even been recorded and posted…apparently in many cases payment was not made in advance of the vote (pretty smart).
In any case it looks as though the PRI had all the angles covered
It’s funny that you indicate that people just need to move on for the health of the country…Al Gore took that posture during the suspicious 2000 US elections and as a result hundreds of thousands of people were killed worldwide during the “Bush Jr” years. Gore should have fought tooth and nail!!!
Thanks for the comment Bones. I understand where you are coming from. One of the main things that we have noticed is that people are not protesting because they favor AMLO or Vazquez Mota, they are expressing their disapproval of the constant manipulation and fraud presented by every government in Mexico. People are tired of being treated like trash in government offices and then when the times of elections and political campaign they give out things, embrace the people, start doing public work, etc, in order to get the vote. People aren’t stupid anymore and have access to social networks, smart phones (as you stated) and other mediums that quickly show every wrong doing anywhere in the country. Anybody who thinks that the #YoSoy132 movement is all about defending one candidate is wrong. If you go deeper in to the issue you’ll notice that what people are really tired of is the government that they’ve had for the last 84 years, that includes, PRI, PAN and PRD. All three have acted the same and all deserve the doubt and distruts the people are expressing. The reason I state that Mexicans need to move on and unite is because if they don’t do this and start working to become a better country, the government is always going to oppress them. As I stated, the vast majority of the country hasn’t been able to decide for a new president. Most will complaint whomever sits at the throne. Three Parties equal a country divided in three. Right now it stands 37% PRI, 31% PRD and 25% PAN. No majority. The majority will always be against if they don’t decide who and what they want. There is a lot of hatred between followers of each party. PRI supporters hate PAN and PRD supporters, and viceversa, they need to stop that and back whomever they choose as their president in order to become the force they want to be. Thanks for your comment!
#YoSoy132 is a youth movement, that turned into a general movement, that is dedicated to not allowing the PRI to regain power…they also a fed with and protest the mainstream media (for good reason). The movement apparently started when students “booed” and pretty much kicked EPN out of one of the most prestigious universities in the country and the mainstream media made it out to be a successful campaign stop that had a few “troublemakers” put a damper on things (an outright lie).
If what you say is true than why didn’t the people just vote for Gabriel Quadri de la Torre of the “New Alliance”…turns out that he only garnered 1,150,562 votes or 2.29%.
There is a feeling amongst many Mexicans that PRI did not garner 37% of the vote, they feel that this reported percentage is absolutely fraudulent. The feeling amongst the disconcerted is that PRI still sit in the neighborhood of 25% of the vote as in 2006, where the PAN were banished to due it’s recent policies of extreme violence and war.
Protest marches against the PRI and election results are planned for today countrywide…it will be interesting to see what kind of turnout manifests.
More than 1 Million people marched…mainstream press did not cover it, and even the sidestream press labeled the marches as “The Youth Rebellion” when 30%-40% of the protestors where over 30 years of age…
PRI have now been officially accused of buying over 5 MILLION votes. The argument is “…in a free, secret ballot how can a party buy a vote? Anybody can take the money and vote as they wish in the ballot box”. The truth…payment was not made in advance and to receive payment one had to take a photo of their ballot with their phone as proof of their vote. Even a PRI supporting grocery chain participated by offering gift certificates with proof of vote…shameful!!!
Interesting to note that the Grocery Chain lost 7.4% of it’s value on the stock exchange in the last few days due to it’s role in the blatant vote buying scandal. The situation is very real!!!
Of course its real! Mexico’s citizens are tired of being taken as stupid dumbasses. These kindn of movements are the ones that will change the country.