Americas Features
Mexican election complete as political crisis continues
By Veronica Sardon
Sep 5, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Buenos Aires - Mexico may finally have its president-elect, but the political crisis that followed July's presidential election is bound to persist regardless.

The Federal Electoral Tribunal of the Judiciary (TEPJF) on Tuesday said in its official vote count that conservative Felipe Calderon won the July 2 election by 233,831 votes, or 0.56 percentage points, ahead of leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

But given that Lopez Obrador insists the vote was fraudulent and refuses to concede defeat, uncertainty remains the word of the day.

The wafer-thin election result, along with the confrontational atmosphere and street protests that have escalated over the past two months, provide for a very divided political scenario.

'The only way in which (Calderon) can obtain political legitimacy and social legitimacy is through good government,' political analyst Ricardo Aleman told the Mexican daily El Universal.

The now president-elect has kept a reasonably low profile since the election, confident that the country's electoral authorities would uphold his victory. He urged his rival to reconsider his confrontational approach and repeatedly called for dialogue.

Lopez Obrador, with little to lose after his initial defeat, launched a determined assault to take the presidency, consistently upping the stakes and warning he would be satisfied with no less than a complete vote recount that left him as the winner.

He did seem to have a point to his recount demand, as the trend of vote reviews appeared to support his claim that his showing in the July poll was better than initial results suggested.

After the initial election count that ended July 3, Calderon had an advantage of more than 400,000 votes or 1.04 percentage points over Lopez Obrador. Within a week that margin had shrunk to about 244,000 votes, or 0.58 percentage points.

Tuesday, after a recount of about 9 per cent of Mexico's polling stations, the TEFPJ said in its official and final vote count that Calderon won by 233,831 votes, or 0.56 percentage points over Lopez Obrador.

That ruling marked the end of the electoral fight, as the tribunal has refused to order a full recount, but it appears that the former mayor of Mexico City is not yet ready to lay down his arms.

Analyst Denisse Dresser suggested weeks ago that Lopez Obrador's main objective might actually be to avoid a full recount, allowing him to keep up his accusations of fraud.

After Tuesday's ruling, Aleman said Lopez Obrador has a 'gigantic problem' as a political leader - he does not understand that 'the fundamental part of democracy is winning and losing.'

Post-election protests culminated last Friday in the Mexican Congress. Legislators of Lopez Obrador's Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD) occupied the speaker's podium to prevent outgoing president Vicente Fox, whose six-year term ends December 1, from delivering his final state-of-the-nation speech.

Fox was forced to submit his speech in writing instead, marking the the first time a Mexican president has failed to deliver a state- of-the-nation address in person - perhaps an inkling of what lies ahead.

Ironically, the protests by thousands of Lopez Obrador's supporters, who for weeks have been camping out in tents in the centre of Mexico City, violate municipal legislation that Lopez Obrador himself signed when he was mayor.

Although the politician claims the camps constitute a defence of the country's democracy, they have alienated much of the public.

For weeks, Lopez Obrador has warned that he will never acknowledge defeat, and has threatened to set up an alternative government. Before the tribunal decision, he announced he would lead a large rally on September 16, in order to designate a 'government of the people for the people.'

Disruptive as this is bound to be, analysts emphasize that the saga poses only a political dilemma - the strictly legal and electoral issues have now been settled.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), whose 71-year rule was ended in the year 2000 by Fox (like Calderon a member of the National Action Party, PAN), on Tuesday recognised the new president- elect, and its leader Emilio Gamboa Patron called upon all parties to respect the TEFPJ ruling.

'Felipe Calderon is already president, he has before him the challenge of reconciliation and reiterates his will and commitment with dialogue and agreements,' the coordinator of the president- elect's campaign, Josefina Vazquez Mota, said Tuesday.

Despite the controversy, she added that Calderon will be 'a president for all.'