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| Enrique Peña Nieto celebrating in July. His rival Andrés Manuel López Obrador claimed he engaged in vote-buying and campaign spending excesses. Photograph: Daniel Aguilar/Getty Images |
Unanimous ruling by electoral tribunal paves way for Enrique Peña Nieto to take reins as PRI party returns to power
Mexico's
highest election court has voted to dismiss legal challenges to the
results of the 1 July presidential election by the second-placed
candidate.
The unanimous ruling by the seven-member electoral
tribunal paves the way for the Institutional Revolutionary party to
return to power after it lost the presidency for the first time in 71
years in elections in 2000.
The party, known as the PRI, won the presidential vote with a 6.6-point advantage for its candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto.
But leftwing rival Andrés Manuel López Obrador challenged the results,
alleging Peña Nieto engaged in widespread vote-buying and campaign
spending excesses.
Before the vote in their night-time session,
all of the justices said they did not think supporters of López Obrador
had submitted convincing evidence of the alleged abuses.
"Mexico has a president elected by the people, in the person of Enrique Peña Nieto," said Justice Salvador Nava.
Justice
Flavio Galvan dismissed evidence submitted by the leftist coalition
regarding alleged abuses by Peña Nieto's campaign as "vague, generic,
imprecise". The evidence included gift cards, household goods and even
farm animals purportedly given out to voters by the PRI.
Outside
the courthouse, demonstrators who believe Peña Nieto received an unfair
advantage from media outlets, pollsters and campaign donors reacted with
outrage.
A crowd of about 200 protesters chanted "No to
imposition" and "Defend democracy", and some grabbed steel security
barriers that ring the courthouse and began banging them against the
building's gates. One youth group has called for a "funeral march for
democracy" on Friday.
Ricardo Monreal, López Obrador's campaign manager, said the justices were "acting like a gang of ruffians".
The
justices said some of the evidence submitted was hearsay or unclear.
For example, they said the evidence included gifts allegedly given out
by Peña Nieto's party, the PRI, without proof that was where they came
from or that the gifts had been given to influence votes.
Monreal
complained that the justice wanted his coalition "to supply not just the
evidence, but the victims and criminals" as well.
The court
appeared to have done little if any of its own investigation into the
accusations, which centred on hundreds and possibly thousands of
pre-paid gift cards that shoppers at a Mexican grocery store chain said
they were given by Peña Nieto's party before the election.
The
Associated Press interviewed about half a dozen people among shoppers
who mobbed one Soriana store two days after the elections to redeem the
cards; almost all said PRI supporters had given them the cards,
expecting they would vote for the party. The court did not apparently
interview any card recipients. Galvan said only that "there is no proof
of vote-buying".
"It has not been demonstrated that they [the
cards] were given to citizens, or if that occurred, that it was done on
condition they vote for a given candidate," Galvan said.
Justice
Pedro Penagos agreed, saying: "Even though the existence of the Soriana
cards is proven … it has not been proven they were handed out, nor that
they were in exchange for votes for Enrique Peña Nieto."
The
court's ruling also came as electoral authorities were still
investigating whether Peña Nieto's campaign had exceeded campaign
spending limits. To outsiders it appeared much better funded than those
of his rivals.
The justices ruled those investigations may continue but would not be grounds for overturning the vote.
The
ruling by the full court would be the final step before what is widely
expected to be the tribunal's confirmation of Peña Nieto's victory.
According
to the official count, Peña Nieto won 38% of the votes, followed by
López Obrador of the leftist Democratic Revolution party at about 31%.
The
PRI has denied wrongdoing. A confirmation of its victory would end a
12-year PRI absence from Mexico's highest office, which it held without
interruption from 1929 to 2000.
Source: The Guardian
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