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| Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, runner-up in the 1 July ballot, told reporters he did not recognise the official result of the election. Photograph: Henry Romero/Reuters |
Runner-up Andres Manuel López Obrador still refusing to recognise rightwing victory amid allegations of vote-buying
Andres Manuel López Obrador, the leftwing candidate in Mexico's
presidential election, has announced that he does not recognise the
official results, leading observers to believe he may call for street
protests similar to those that paralysed central Mexico City after he
lost the vote in 2006.
Lopez Obrador says a federal electoral tribunal which rejected allegations of vote-buying and other campaign violations
in favour of Enrique Pena Nieto, the candidate of the former ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party, was illegitimite. Lopez Obrador
called a peaceful protest for 9 September.
"I am telling the
people of Mexico that I cannot accept the judgment of the electoral
tribunal that declared the presidential election valid," Lopez Obrador
told a news conference. "The elections were not clean, free and genuine.
As a result, I will not recognise an illegitimate power that's emerged
as a result of vote-buying and other grave violations of the
constitution and the law."
He said he wants protesters to respect the law, and did not call directly for a repeat of the blockades he launched in 2006.
Lopez
Obrador attracted hundreds of thousands of people to the streets for
campaign rallies, and retains a large and fervent base of support in
Mexico City. But Pena Nieto's margin of more than 3 million votes was
far wider than the few hundred thousand that cost Lopez Obrador the 2006
presidential elections, and much of the initial outrage at Pena Nieto's
win appears to have faded since the 1 July ballot.
Lopez Obrador
alleged that Pena Nieto engaged in widespread vote-buying and campaign
spending excesses but Mexico's highest election court voted unanimously
on Thursday to dismiss his challenges. The judgement handed down by a
seven-member tribunal paves the way for the old ruling party PRI to
return to power after losing the presidency for the first time in 71
years in the 2000 election.
The PRI said in a statement that the
ruling "has ended the contentious and combative phase of the federal
electoral process and has fully demonstrated the legitimacy of Enrique
Pena Nieto's victory at the ballot box."
Before the vote, the
judges questioned the nature of the evidence submitted by Lopez
Obrador's supporters. "Mexico has a president elected by the people, in
the person of Enrique Pena Nieto," said Justice Salvador Nava.
The
judges said some of the evidence was hearsay, or unclear. But Ricardo
Monreal, Lopez Obrador's campaign manager, accused the judges of "acting
like a gang of ruffians."
Monreal complained that the tribunal
wanted his coalition "to supply not just the evidence, but the victims
and criminals" as well.
The accusations centered on hundreds and
possibly thousands of pre-paid gift cards that shoppers at a Mexican
grocery store chain said they were given by Pena Nieto's party before
the election.
Source: The Guardian
Via: Comparte tu Wifi
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