Conservative Declared Winner in Mexico's Election

[Regis Philbin]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americ...ote/index.html

Mexico poll 'too close to call'

Election official says no result until at least Wednesday

Monday, July 3, 2006; Posted: 3:58 a.m. EDT (07:58 GMT)

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- Two leading candidates have claimed victory in Mexico's presidential vote, even as the country's top election official deemed the result too close to call.

"It is not possible within the margins established in the quick count to say what party has obtained the highest vote," said Luis Carlos Ugalde, adding "it is not possible to say at this point in time who has won."

The counting of ballots must be completed in all 300 of Mexico's voting districts, with an official count of the votes set to take place on Wednesday, Ugalde added.

With only 52 percent of the vote counted so far, news agencies quoted conservative Felipe Calderon of the ruling National Action Party as having 38 percent of the vote.

Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the coalition, led by the Democratic Revolution party, has nearly 36 percent.

Robert Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party is a distant third.

[db44]

I shall call it... I call it, an election!

There, what was so hard about that?

No pun intended, going back to the Rush thread and hard, that is.

[pinky]

Originally Posted by db44

No pun intended, going back to the Rush thread and hard, that is.

Dave, was there a pun intended in that line?

[Regis Philbin]

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Stor...eid=mktw&dist=

Bets on Calderon win ignite Mexican stocks

Market forecasts defeat for left-leaning rival Lopez Obrador

Last Update: 7:22 PM ET Jul 3, 2006


NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Mexican stocks surged Monday on reports that the conservative presidential candidate, the market favorite, holds a one-percentage-point lead in Sunday's too-close-to-call election.

'It's going Calderon's way.'
— Damian Fraser, UBS

The official outcome will not be known for days, but preliminary results, based on returns from 98.2% of all Mexican polling places, showed Felipe Calderon winning 36.37 % of the vote, while leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador trailed with 35.36%, according to Mexico's Federal Election Institute, the agency in charge of computing the votes.

The institute said results aren't final and that the winner would be announced only after an official count, which is to begin Wednesday.

The stock market, however, felt it had been given sufficient information to assume a Calderon victory.

The benchmark Indice de Precios y Cotizaciones jumped 914 points, or 4.8%, to 20,061 in Monday trades. The IPC has increased over 40% during the past 12 months, placing Mexico among the two best-performing Latin American markets.

The Mexican peso was up 2% against the U.S. dollar in Monday trading.

The Mexican president, elected to a six-year term, plays a central role in directing the country's economic policy.

[db44]

One and the same, I guess.

[Richard Tafoya]

LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...home-headlines

The margin between the two leading candidates for president narrowed suddenly Tuesday after election authorities revealed that about 2.5 million votes had been missing from earlier counts. The announcement meant the race between leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and conservative Felipe Calderon was still too close to call.

The news of uncounted votes heightened the sense of disarray since Mexico's polls closed Sunday night.

An initial count of the ballots gave a slim but apparently insurmountable lead to Calderon. On Monday evening, Calderon was leading Lopez Obrador by 402,708 votes, with 98.45% of polling stations "processed," according to official reports.

But election authorities acknowledged Tuesday that the preliminary count did not include vote totals from more than 11,000 stations where "irregularities" were noted in official paperwork. Those stations were listed as "processed" in the official reports, but their votes were not included in the tally.

Late Tuesday, election officials added the 2.5 million votes to the public count. Lopez Obrador outpolled Calderon on these ballots by more than 145,000 votes, narrowing Calderon's lead to slightly more than 257,000 ballots, or 0.6 percentage point.

Election authorities said that as many as 900,000 votes remained to be added to the official tally because polling station results had not yet arrived at regional election headquarters. An undetermined number are from the remotest rural areas of southern Mexico, which lean toward Lopez Obrador.

The new figures were released after Lopez Obrador charged Monday that more than 3 million votes had been "lost" from the preliminary tallies released by the Federal Electoral Tribunal.

[Venisenvy]

Anyone that knows the history of mexico would understand why this might make the people nervous. Until the last election were Fox won basically every single election was bogus. The votes were not counted properly, those that won did not win. The party in power (PRI) ran the show, they still had term limits so the president would select who would follow him and that person would always win. Finally 5 years ago Mexico got what it deserved a truly democratic election with the victory of Fox. Now im sure many people including me are fearing a return to the old way of doing things.

[Richard Tafoya]

LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...home-headlines

As Mexico launched the official recount of presidential vote tallies today, conservative Felipe Calderon insisted his slim lead from a preliminary count would hold, and said he would be willing to include his leftist rival in his Cabinet as a show of unity.

...

In spite of Calderon's confidence, the recount as of late today showed the former Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador with a slight lead. It was considered far from certain that the trend would hold.

...

Once the count is complete, the seven-judge Federal Electoral Tribunal hears any complaints and can overturn elections. By law, it must certify a winner by Sept. 6, and its decision is final.

[Richard Tafoya]

LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...home-headlines

Conservative Felipe Calderon won Mexico's presidential election by less than a percentage point today, defeating leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador after more than three days of vote counting and recounting.

Lopez Obrador immediately denounced irregularities in the vote count and said he would launch a "peaceful and legal" effort to overturn Calderon's victory before Mexico's Federal Electoral Tribunal — and in the court of public opinion.

The leftist candidate urged his followers to attend a massive rally to protest the election result on Saturday in Mexico City's central square. With all 41 million votes cast in Sunday's presidential election counted, Calderon defeated Lopez Obrador by about 230,000 votes, or 0.57 percentage points.

Having triumphed in the closest election in modern Mexican history, Calderon exulted in a predawn speech at the headquarters of his National Action Party. He promised to work to unite Mexicans divided by one of the bitterest campaigns in Mexican political history — and to defend his victory against the court challenges.

The official tally of voting sheets began Wednesday morning, three days after Mexicans went to the polls. A preliminary tally of the ballots completed Tuesday had left the result too close to call.

Lopez Obrador charged that the preliminary count was plagued by irregularities, and called on election officials to open hundreds of thousands of ballot boxes and recount all 41 million ballots. But election officials said such a request was both impractical and in violation of Mexican law, and the count of polling sheets reports proceeded.

[Sinister]

He promised to work to unite Mexicans divided by one of the bitterest campaigns in Mexican political history — and to defend his victory against the court challenges.

So Calderon's a uniter, not a divider. Hmm.