Ceci:
Despite all the talk about the post-electoral conflict the country remains united thanks too AMLO himself. Eversince he started his protests Felipe Calderon has become more popular than ever.

Denise Dresser is an AMLO apologist, in the article you mention she parallels what AMLO is doing vs what Calderon in a very simplistical way because she tries to justify AMLO's errors at all costs.

What these mediocre leftist analysts will never speak about is who won and who lost in these elections and they don't like to talk about it precisely because the Mexican people voted for giving the right a greater presence in both houses.

PAN has now 206 congressmen and in the Senate they also have the largest presence there.

Felipe Calderon will have a de facto mayority in both houses of Congress. All he will need to reach a mayority will be some 30 or 40 congressmen, in congress he will have 206 plus PANAL 8, that makes 214, and we must remember that Felipe Calderon was careful enough to build great alliances with most PRI Governors, who have greater control over their federal senators and congressmen. Calderon will only need a small fraction of the PRI to reach mayority to make constitutional changes, but it is likely that the whole PRI will support his presidency.
In the elections, the PRI will receive the needed support to revive and make a come back. Two elections will be key for PRI and PRD, Chiapas and Tabasco, Veracruz will be a fight with all parties involved but it is likely that PAN will win the state, they have have a large presence there.

So the future for Calderon looks shiny. And AMLO and PRD know that but their actions are only strengtening Felipe Calderon and President Fox.

As we speak, many people in Mexico would like to Federal government to intervene and get rid of the blockades.

I was talking with a friend of mine who works about a block from one of the camps. He's asking me wether he can find work in my city because he's "up to the mother" (you know what I mean). 1 hour commute now takes 3 hours, all public transportation is saturated, he tells me he arrives at work every day looking like "a donkey chewed his suit" and that to get it the subway he practically needs a wedge. Yeah, the capitalinos have adapted all right.

Everybody in our country has had enough of this. AMLO lost. But maybe the problem is not him being such a capricious and irresponsible fellow, maybe the problem is our society as a whole, we have become too forgiving with undemocratical people like him. We tolerate Manuel Barlett and Murat and Camacho Solis and characters of the like.
And then we have some irresponsible and mediocre leftist intellectuals like Denise Dresser, Lorenzo Meyer, Ciro Gomez Leyva, Carmen Aristegui and a whole bunch of them who instead of demanding AMLO to give up his street fight techniques (not his legal plea at the TRIFE, to which he is perfectly entitled to) instead of demanding him to be responsible, they have actually encouraged him by apologizing and explaning his actions to the public. Like this last article from Denise where she actually compares the actions from PRD and PAN and puts them at an equal level, How can somebody like Denise Dresser do such a thing? How can you compare the actions of the PAN to what AMLO and PRD have done? While AMLO has been on tv and in newspapers with all kinds of public actions and incendiary statements, PAN and Felipe Calderon have remained calm and have berely come out in public forums and when they do they call for everybody to be calm and to have a reconciliation. But biased pseudo-intellectuals like Denise want to interpret these statements as provocations. What does Denise want Felipe Calderon to do? To give in to AMLO's demands? To say that he did not win while AMLO calls the election a fraud? Totally nonsense. Denise Dresser finds violence when Felipe Calderon calls the pacifics to be pacient but she does not find any violence when AMLO speaks about the rich and priviledged versus the poor and miserable as though the rich were rich because of an act of god or something like that and not because of their hardwork and good administration of their wealth.

Emptyboxes, Dresser is hardly a leftist or AMLO apologist. Meyer, while clearly left leaning cannot be dismissed as a "mediocre intellectual", I respect his knowledge of history. Finally, Gomez Leyva, while no Edgar R. Murrow, at least tries to be balanced. If I had to pick the best newscaster (not columnist) I'd probably go with Trujillo. He shares a characteristic with Demetrio Sodi that I appreciate very much: he manages to piss everybody off. You gotta be doing something right if you manage that feat.

BTW, the second comment was mine, forgot to sign it.

Ceci,

You say in your article that AS MANY AS 100,000 people gather at El Zocalo for the September 15 celebration. I've been there and the place is packed.

Last I heard, that place holds 1,000,000 people, if you believe the PRD Police Department propaganda machine. On a good day even 2,000,000 and when Lopez says so 3,000,000.

Shouldn't you check your numbers before you publish them? The magician head-counters at the mayor's office will enlighten you with their numbers.

Denise Dresser is worse than a leftist. She is a liberal. You know where Batres,Bejarano,Padierna, stand.

Liberals are elusive nitpickers whining left and right. Their arguments are woolly and comfy, punctillious and generalizing. They will take a stand but not really. Their political correctness is insufferable, mushy bland nothingness. They allow their inner Quijote be. Denisse Dresser, she's a liberal. Enough said.

An article yesterday said only 20K or so showed up at AMLO's last "informative rally". Is this true? If so, the protests must be running out of gas.

Ariel R. Orellana:
What I have read from these people is nothing but apoligies of AMLO. Trujillo got together this Mesa De Periodistas with Denise Dresser, Raymundo Riva Palacio from El Universal, Julio Hernandez from La Jornada, and Marcela Gomez from Milenio, and occassionally they had Sergio Aguayo, Lorenzo Meyer, Ciro Gomez Leyva, Carlos Marin.
Did you ever see Jesus Silva-Herzog, Federico Reyes Heroles there? No, and the reason is simple, because they are not leftist, because they think different.
La Mesa de Periodistas was never a debating group but rather a bunch of biased leftists analysts who would usually agree to whatever one of them said, granted, most of the times Raymundo did not agree with the cocaine conspiracy theories of Julio Hernandez, but nobody there ever gave any credit to President Fox, PAN and Felipe Calderon for anything.
The Results of the election proved them so wrong they could not speak about the following Monday, they were shocked. So far from reality were they.
How could Felipe Calderon, who they described as a gray and mediocre and boring candidate, how could he ever gotten so many votes?

Of course now we see a more balanced Raymundo, finally critizing AMLO, something he never, absolutely never did before the elections, and we can see the same from Denise Dresser, who berely attempted to critize AMLO once or twice in a whole year of campaign before the elections, but continually attacked Felipe Calderon portraying him as an intolerant and traditionalist and dogmatically catholic panista, When she, Denise Dresser, perfectly knows that Felipe Calderon is far from being like that, his good relations with Fidel Castro and his contacts with Venezuela to neutralize any support for AMLO from these nations contradic Denise's stupid assumptions about him. Raymundo, Julio Hernandez and La Jornada entirely, Denise Dresser, Ciro Gomez Leyva, Carlos Marin, Victor Trujillo, Sergio Aguayo, Marcela Gomez, Lorenzo Meyer and many others with them now look like imbeciles who talked so much about the virtues and qualities, and democratic values, and principles and political skills and intelligence about a man, AMLO, who is now in the Zocalo mounting a ridiculous protests and publicly attacking everybody, the press, the TRIFE, the Supreme Court, the President, The IFE, PAN, Felipe Calderon, Betty la fea, etc. When this same same man, AMLO, who all these mediocre and leftist intellectuals described as a smart politician who in their same words no doubt was going to be the next president of Mexico, was just six months ago, more than 10 points ahead in all the voting intention polls in the country.
AMLO has let these intellectuals down so bad, they cannot admit that Felipe Calderon won because he was smart enough to listen to his campaign advisors and to develop polical alliances with Elba Esther Gordillo (whose offer of alliance was turned down by the PRD before) and Felipe also developed ties with most PRI Governors and even with some PRD governors, he met at least one time with Cardenas Batel, and many groups interested in the future of the country, the business community, the church, the jewish community, among others.
Felipe Calderon won because of all these alliances he was able to build, and not only he won but in the process he helped his party recover their presence in congress and senate, to the point of going from being the third political force in congress to being the fist one now.
His Political skills have been more than demonstrated. By the way, he has just sent his respects to Fidel Castro, hoping for his quick recovery, does that describe him as a traditional ultra-right wing Panista?

why don't you wait until the judges speak?

from www.narconews.com

Mexico's Partial Vote Recount Confirms Massive and Systematic Election Fraud
With Less than 9 Percent of Precincts Recounted, More than 126,000 Votes Are Found to Have Been Disappeared or Illegally Fabricated

By Al Giordano
Part V of a Special Series for The Narco News Bulletin
August 14, 2006

Finally, the hard numbers are starting to come in. In the "partial recount" of paper ballots from the July 2 presidential election in Mexico, ordered by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (known as the Trife), the recount has been completed in 10,679 precincts of the 11,839 ordered by the court (about 9 percent of Mexico's 130,000 precincts). From these precincts, Narco News has obtained the following preliminary numbers that confirm the massive and systematic electoral fraud inflicted on the Mexican people:

In 3,074 precincts (29 percent of those recounted), 45,890 illegal votes, above the number of voters who cast ballots in each polling place, were found stuffed inside the ballot boxes (an average of 15 for each of these precincts, primarily in strongholds of the National Action Party, known as the PAN, of President Vicente Fox and his candidate, Felipe Calderón).
In 4,368 precincts (41 percent of those recounted), 80,392 ballots of citizens who did vote are missing (an average of 18 votes in each of these precincts).
Together, these 7,442 precincts contain about 70 percent of the ballots recounted. The total amount of ballots either stolen or forged adds up to 126,282 votes altered.
If the recount results of these 10,679 precincts (8.2 percent of the nation's 130,000 polling places) are projected nationwide, it would mean that more than 1.5 million votes were either stolen or stuffed in an election that the first official count claimed was won by Calderon by only 243,000 votes.
Among the findings of this very limited partial recount are that in 3,079 precincts where the PAN party is strong and where, in many cases, the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) of candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador did not count with election night poll watchers, one or more of three things occurred: Either the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE, in its Spanish initials) illegally provided more ballots than there are voters in those precincts, or the PAN party stole those extra ballots, or ballots were forged.

"Taqueo and Saqueo"

These preliminary recounts demonstrate mainly two kinds of fraud: "taqueo," or the stuffing of ballot boxes with false votes as if putting extra beans inside a taco, and "saqueo," or "looting," that is, the disappearance of legitimate ballots cast.

A significant problem, now, for Mexican democracy (for those who claim that the election was fair, and also for those who view this evidence as proof of electoral fraud) is that there is no way to tell, inside each ballot box, which of the ballots were legal and which were not; nor which ballots were stolen and which were not.

In some past post-electoral disputes for state and local offices, the Trife electoral court has opted, based on this kind of evidence, to annul the results from those precincts where stuffing or looting occurred.

If the Trife follows the law and its own established precedents, and annuls the results in these 7,442 precincts where the fraud took place, it would reverse the official results and López Obrador would emerge the victor by more than 425,000 votes nationwide.

Specifically, Calderón would lose 1,225,326 votes from his tally, while López Obrador would lose just 556,600; a difference of 668,726. When factoring in IFE's claim that Calderón has a more than 243,000 vote advantage, López Obrador would still win the election by those 425,000 votes plus some.

In other words, if the Supreme Electoral Court determines that only half of the problematic precincts are to be annulled, López Obrador would still be declared the presidential victor. To continue to impose Calderón, at this point, would require the court's endorsement of results from at least 4,000 precincts that the recount has demonstrated were scenes of the electoral crimes of ballot-stuffing and ballot-theft. By failing to annul those precincts, the court would, in effect, annul the legitimacy of the Mexican State, lighting the fuse on a social conflict much larger than anything that has yet occurred in the wake of the fraudulent election.

The Clock Is Ticking

The Trife court has a constitutional deadline of August 31 to complete its computations and of September 6 to either declare the presidential winner or, alternately, to annul the elections. The court has very broad and absolute power to annul up to 20 percent of the precincts without annulling the entire election (annulment would mean that Congress would choose an interim president and new elections would be called within two years). If the Trife annuls more than 20 percent of the precincts, the entire election would have to be annulled.

López Obrador and his supporters have demanded a full recount of all precincts: "Vote by vote, precinct by precinct." And, indeed, the results of the partial recount strongly suggest that a full recount would demonstrate that they won the election. As the tension has risen, and the deadlines approach, López Obrador supporters maintain a 12-mile encampment in downtown Mexico City, have symbolically closed government office buildings, held mass marches with millions of protesters, maintained encampments outside of IFE offices throughout the country, and this past week began "takings" of toll booths on federal highways, allowing motorists to pass through without paying.

López Obrador has already announced that if the Trife tries to impose Calderón, there will be "civil resistance" at the halls of Congress on September 1, when President Vicente Fox must give his annual State of the Union address, and that on Mexico's national Independence Day, September 15, when the president traditionally leads the "cry of pain" from the Mexico City Zocalo, the opponents to the electoral fraud will displace Fox with a cry of their own.

Many observers viewed the Trife court's initial rejection of a full recount as a reflection of the court's own bias and willingness to impose Calderón as president at any cost. Others believe that the electoral court's own established precedent of annulling precincts where ballot stuffing or theft occurred puts it in a position of having to annul those 7,442 precincts (almost six percent of all precincts nationwide), reversing the results of the election. Also, recently, one of the justices of the nation's Supreme Court suggested in public that if the Trife doesn't or can't establish certainty over the result, the highest court may then intervene. In other words, September 6 might not be the final date of the legal conflict over this very tarnished election.

Presence of Malice

Photo: D.R. 2006 El Universal
The partial recount has also revealed more evidence of a pattern of malice on the part of IFE officials. The existence of more ballots than there are voters in PAN stronghold precincts indicates that either the IFE illegally sent more ballots than allowed to those precincts, or somehow the party in power obtained them by other illegal means. The recount has also revealed a massive number of precincts where the seals on the ballot boxes had been broken since Election Day, opening the possibility that ballots were inserted or removed after July 2nd.

Mexico's television duopoly - Televisa and TV Azteca - have declined to report the irregularities that have surfaced as a result of the partial recount. The same goes for much - but not all - of the corporate media. The facts have instead broken the media blockade via Internet and organization, as well as the detailed reporting of the daily La Jornada in Mexico City, the daily Por Esto! in Yucatán (two of the nation's four largest newspapers) and some other media. Add to this mediatic schizophrenia the factor that those who support Calderón and insist the election was clean are passive, lacking conviction, whereas those millions who believe an electoral fraud was committed are active, and in the streets, and it is evident that just as the Mexican State has lost legitimacy, the corporate (especially television) media have lost credibility and power to spin public opinion.

Photo: D.R. 2006 Reforma
This morning, part of the protest encampment in downtown Mexico City, along Madero Street, was dismantled by its participants and thousands moved, en masse, to the entrance to the halls of the Federal Congress. Riot police blocked them from reaching the doors. There was some pushing and shoving, as the accompanying photos show, but demonstrators - who outnumbered police by a factor of thousands - by and large remained peaceful, still holding out a cubic-centimeter of hope that the Trife electoral tribunal will do the right thing and fix the fraud. But that patience is as thin as a razor, and as the clock counts down to the decision that the Trife must make by September 6, the electoral court and its seven judges now have the facts in hand, the evidence of systematic fraud that changed the results, which the partial recount has furnished.

The anti-fraud protestors have maintained a peaceful round-the-clock vigil outside the halls of Congress in the Mexico City neighborhood of San Lazaro for various weeks, in which many of the current senators and congress members from the PRD party have participated. At 2:15 this afternoon, elements of the Federal Preventive Police (PFP, in its Spanish initials, the same agency that invaded San Salvador Atenco in May) attacked the vigil encampment, according to this wire report from La Jornada. (The report states that six congressmen and women were wounded in the attack; El Universal reports the number of legislators wounded by police at 11.) When police forces attack and prevent duly elected senators and congress members from entering their own governing hall, the term for that is coup d'etat. It is an invitation to social revolution. The events of recent weeks and months in Mexico suggest that Vicente Fox and his attack troops would be wrong to presume that there are enough police in the country to hold back the turn of history that he is provoking from above.

Photo: D.R. 2006 El Universal
Today marks two months since June 14, when 15,000 citizens of Oaxaca beat back and chased 3,000 riot cops from that city's historic center, revealing the "new math" of Mexican protest movements. They have since taken the state TV station and more than 30 city halls, as well as having shut down the state government in their demand that repressive Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz resign. Yet their numbers are a fraction of the masses that, in Mexico City and elsewhere, are resisting the electoral fraud. And added to the post-electoral conflict, more related to that in Oaxaca, is the unsettled account of 30 political prisoners arrested May 3 and 4 in San Salvador Atenco, the pending arrival there of indigenous comandantes from the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN, in its Spanish initials), and the quiet organizing being done from Mexico City and in other states by its Subcomandante Marcos and thousands of organizations and adherents to the Zapatista Other Campaign, which, outside the glare of the media and the electoral spectacle, organizes toward a national rebellion more ambitious than saving the vote of a single election, but, rather, seeking to topple an economic system. The Trife, if it imposes the fraud, will accelerate the Zapatista calendar as perhaps the greatest consequence.

If the seven electoral justices believed that holding a partial recount would calm passions, the facts unleashed by that partial recount have served, instead, to flame them. What the judges do with those facts will determine whether the institutions will correct the fraud, or whether the institutions will risk, as in Oaxaca, falling from power because of trying to impose an indefensible crime against Mexican society and democracy. What seven judges decide in the next three weeks will mark a crossroads in Mexican history... and that of all América.

Scott Coleman, the PFP did not invade Atenco in May, as your article says. They backed up the Policia Estatal of EDOMEX who were brutally repressing poor people with machetes and gasoline bombs by trying to keep a highway open. (Pasilla will I am sure point out that art. 11 does not mention highways)

If this is your idea of democracy, please keep it in the United States, or wherever you happen to be. We have enough homegrown violence here, we do not need outside agitators egging it on. If and when the dieing starts, you will be far away from it all and safe, a privilege we do not have. Maybe you and Maya can keep each other company, comparing Pell Grants at some American university while peasants die in Mexico.

scott celeman,

If you can post the Illiad and your local yellow pages and the white pages
and while you're at it Library of Congress' full catalog transcripts archives and what nots, I'd thank you the favor. Your post above is lovely, we want more. We're masochists.

Scott: Narconews? Duuuuuude...

c'mon now, somebody post Fox News so we can complete the unfair and biased section of the comments. Oh, if you're going to just cut and paste why not just post links?

Emptyboxes: Don't be hatin'. Dresser has always been balanced, lets ask pasilla or someone else if she thinks Dresser is a leftist. Rodolfo correctly points out she's middle of the road, he says liberal (like its a bad word) I say balanced. I sure would like to be called liberal any day. Maybe "convenenciera" would be a better label, but I don't believe she is.

Now, Hernandez is clearly out there, he's just gone, call search and rescue. As to why we don't see more conservative columnists on Trujillo's round table I can't say, but he does not exclude one side or the other. Let's put it this way: AMLO's supporters say he should boycotted for being biased. You say the same thing. Coincidence?

En unos dias el tribunal federal "limpiara" la eleccion, al tomar nota de los cambios cuantitativos expresados en las actas de los jueces responsables del recuento.
Entonces podra declarar la validez de la eleccion y declarara presidente electo a Calderon.
Entonces Andres Manuel Lopez Santa Anna se vera en la necesidad de escalar sus ridiculeces o generar una asonada reaccionaria. Con violencia. Y, por supuesto, perdera.
tic,tac;tic,tac;tic,tac. Solo unos dias mas.

Orellana,

I agree. Denise Dresser is middle of the road convenenciera wich is exactly what I said. Liberals are like that. On the radio she is perfectly reasonable. With Trujillo she is infuriating to watch, how she accomodates her arguments so the nut from La Jornada isn't offended.

People, left and right should be discussing what works, not their political agenda. Problems require solutions that work, not blue, yellow or tricolor polarizing sloganeering. We want Mexican democracy to work, not sado-masochist plantones.

Apparently, AMLO supporters are now blockading the Spanish embassy in the DF. If Zapatero, of all people, is not pure enough for them, who exactly is? The only heads of government I can think of who are to the left of Zapatero are Fidel and Hugito Chavez.

More exciting information is coming out. Excelsior is now reporting that, the recount over, Calderon lost 7,254 votes and AMLO lost 324 votes, with 9,000 votes left to be validated. This means that Calderon's margin of victory is now .567%, slightly down from .584%.

This, I think, is it. Calderon is president elect.

JerryB,

Don't you miss the good old days when a soda cost several thousand pesos. A few years ago I asked a petate vendor in a country market for the price of a petate and he said 35,000 pesos. I asked this older man, who has sold petates all his life, how much the same petate cost when he started selling them and he said 50 cents.

The populist regimes that Lopez waxes nostalgic about turned a humble petate anyone could afford into an unaffordable Magic Carpet that was still a petate. Don't you miss those good old days.

Posted by: rodolfo | August 15, 2006 11:42 AM

Rodolfo, I remember walking around with a million pesos in my pocket at times (It was about $300US at the time) and feeling so cool. I remember being able to us one American penny to make a local call on a pay phone, because the phone company had given up trying to keep up with inflation, and just set the phones to accept anything round. And, I remember the pleasure of winning $764,000 pesos at a dog race in Tijuana.

A case of Coke cost $15,600.
A six pack of beer was $7,500
Tacos were $1,200 each.

Oh for the good old days. Maybe AMLO will bring all this back.

Posted by: Jerry B | August 15, 2006 11:55 AM

Does anyone remember the good old echeverrismo Lopez is such a fan of?

It is quite obvious that the election was, to say the least, somewhat fraudulent. After all, the fact that some of the numbers of votes coming from the different election districts do not agree with the expected number is a clear sign that the results, regardless of the winner, need to be thrown out in many precincts. The right and fair choice for Mexico would be a so called run off election between Lopez Obrador and Calderon. Yes, it would cost money and time but the price would be negligible if this process leads to a LEGITIMATE winner in that election. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to realize that when the vote difference between the two candidates is so small (less than 1%), particularly in a process where there will always be "irregularities" in the voting (Mexico is a country where fraud and corruption are a modus vivendi), it is IMPOSSIBLE to declare a legitimate winner. You probably need at a minimum a 5-6% difference in the final count between the top candidates to declare a true winner.
Calderon is aware of this problem but he has chosen to ignore it. What is he afraid of? It is sad that Calderon has turned out to be another politician willing to do anything to gain power at the expense of the well being of his own country. Calderon has not tried to reach to Lopez Obrador to find the best option for a country in dire need: few people would deny that it is a DISGRACE that so many millions of mexicans have to go to the US to barely provide for their families. Calderon has the unique opportunity to show that he is a leader who cares about his country. Mexico does not need yet another demagogue politician trying to do what is best for him and his followers (PAN).

kind bloggers:
it almost looks like few people writing here care about the actual electoral mandate. but, those persistent campesions don't know what's best for them anyway.

thank you for the link- pasting advice--and my sincere apologies for that behavior.

Ariel:
Would you be willing to expand on your seemingly prescient comment "Narconews? Duuuuuude...". I mean, their black and red website is a bit foreboding but so is the truth. When I was in Bolivia working on a headlice problem at the time of Evil Evo's election, narconews reporting matched my sight, unlike washingtonpost and Faux News. So, besides being there, what are your sources for facts? educate me. tell me where to go for the truth.

all:
thanks for the warm welcome. i didn't realise i was typing (and pasting--sorry) amongst oligarchs

jerry b: there aren't any safe places this side of the styx.

JerryB,

Lopez made a cocession speech on Sunday. Everybody missed it. He said before his adoring plantonistas that he would be present at the TEPJF premises when Calderon is given certification as "spurious president-elect".

Who said defeat doesn't sit well with this INDESTRUCTIBLE-RayOfHope-PURYFIER cackling rooster.

It is clear that AMLO and all of his supporters have absolutely no legitimacy and no cause worth fighting for.

After all the elections as officially counted gave Felipe Calderon a huge, huge majority, a vast, giant, enormous popular majority, I think it was a victory of tens of millions of votes over AMLO, whom is universally hated among all the people of Mexico, except for some foolish chilangos and cocaine scientists in southern Mexico. More than a victory, it is a vast, overwhelming, gigantic statement that the hated PRD party is now resigned to the dustbin of history, and finally nothing will remain but modern, forward thinking political parties based on experts and professionals who know how to dress well and received correct educations.

Thankfully Calderon upon assuming office based in his unchallengeable and enormous mandate can not only continue but improve upon the stunningly successful record of the Fox presidency, including the unprecedented GDP growth, the additions of many more millions of jobs through careful privatization of public industries, and perhaps with luck entertain all the daring souls who would love to see harsh spankings delivered to those stinky children and Stalinists wasting space and time in the Zocalo and even the crazy ladies who shout rudely in cathedrals.

Did I get that about right?

scott coleman,

The only imperialist invader in this blog is your unfortunate first posting. It took more than two hours for you to explain? What are you smoking over there.

Here, we're up to our necks shooing away totalitarian wanna-be's with the largest stick we can find!

drgecc: I agree with you, I think a runoff would be the best possible solution. Regardless of who won, the winner has no more than 36% of the vote, and is going to be a minority president. I also think, that, having had a month and more to get to know Mr. AMLO really well, the voters would hand Calderon the presidency in a landslide.

That being said, there are two minor problems. One is that elections, in Mexico and the world, are conducted according to law, and Mexican law has no provisions for runoffs. It should. Hopefully it will in 2012. Right now it does not. Maybe the TEPJF could order one anyway, as its decisions are not able to be appealed. I personally would love it if it did. But I doubt it. Furthermore, minor details like laws have never really worried AMLO, yet he is not making any types of calls for a runoff. Why? Because he knows he would lose, and lose big.

If a runoff was held, does anyone here doubt that AMLO would just start screaming fraud and eleccion de estado again when he lost?

Scott. I hope you did not get any headlice in Bolivia. You say "narconews reporting matched my sight" in Bolivia. I think you mean that narconews matched your preconcieved opinions. You are obviously not in one of the 16 Mexican states that supported Calderon, because if you were you would know how ridiculous the idea of our 10 or 20% of PRDistas doing something stupid is. Like the chilangos, I think that everyone YOU see loves AMLO, so you assume that the whole country loves him. It does not, or he would have won a lot more than the 35% he got, or even the 38% or so he would have got if all his fraud claims were true.

Scott, nice to know you're not just watching from afar.

I don't own the truth, I can't tell you were to find it, that is for each to determine, but in this case you've gone to one end of the spectrum so I jokingly asked for another extremist news source, just one on the other end of said spectrum. Let it be noted that I despise Fox News, BTW. Now, as to how to determine what the "truth" is, I fear if you've never been at a polling station to see what transpires there then the arguments presented by the PRD and just repeated by narconews and La Jornada, among others, will sway you quite easily. In one of the previous posts of this blog I posted a rather lengthy explanation as to exact process a casillas goes through. I'd ask you to take a few minutes to read it and then come back and I'll answer specific questions as to how the "fraud" could have happened. I personally find it quite difficult, although not completely impossible. I mean sure, 4 to 14 people per station can sell out and change the results in their casilla, but to claim that this is systematic and planned is like claiming that the WTC was brought down by a huge conspiracy concocted from inside the Bush administration. Conceivable, sure, why not? Possible? C'mon...

Look, you want to know how difficult it is to commit fraud under this system? Ask the UN. When elections were organized in Irak, the UN searched for the best possible polling system to take over there. Did it take the US system? Of course not. Did it take an European system? Nope. It took the Mexican system and took IFE officials to implement it. Did you ever hear of fraud allegations in Irak?

The above unamed post is mine.

El Cid,

If I remember correctly the original El Cid was defeated by an overwhelming Moslem superiority, not for a lack of trying. I also remember Rosita Elvirez recieved 7 shots but was lucky, only one was fatal.

Lopez is the Rosita Elvirez of our day. He was not voted-for by more than 27 million voters. In an election you loose by one vote. Did I get that right?

If Lopez wants to continue his People's Cause, he can. Does he have a right to make new rules as he goes. No. He won't succeed. Authoritarians have no place in today's Mexico. You better get that right.

drgecc,

The key phrase in your post says Calderon has chosen to ignore a weakness there is in Electoral Law. Calderon is not the King of Mexico, he is a presidential contender like the other 4 contenders and he has no power to make the rules as he goes. That's Lopez' game. Calderon didn't make the law, he has to follow the law.

Orellana,

Lopez coined "complo" to explain away his political blunders and for years it was the word du' jour. The new concoction from this same democrat is "fraud".

This man's carreer has been built on fabrication after fabrication. Won't we ever learn?

The original El Cid was a military leader among the minor nobility who hired Muslims himself, and for nearly a decade actually worked for a Muslim leader, but mostly worked for his own profit and power, angering King Alphonso by invading the Alphonso-protected Moorish city-state of Toledo. And supposedly he died of natural causes in his own kingdom in Valencia. I don't find him to be any sort of historical role model, but he did inspire a very, very cool poem -- "el que en buen ora cinxo su espada..."

"In an election you loose by one vote. Did I get that right?"

Indeed you did. That is why electoral institutions in both the U.S. and Mexico should be more than willing to consider careful general recounts when such close results merit. But they are not generally so willing, and such is the system, and so shut up all of you who worry about such things, you must simply be crazy and paranoid. The Supreme Court of the United States told the Florida State Supreme Court to stop recounting the votes in 2000, so I guess we here too know of this reluctance.

But then, what I read here in these comments suggests that the election was not won by one vote, nor by a few votes, but that AMLO was not only hated since the protests began but that AMLO has always been hated, that Calderon did not just win but vanquished a dangerous and beastly foe.

If I had to guess the future, I would guess that AMLO has been denied the presidency (whether he won it or not), but has now been promoted to organizer, a position which has been sorely lacking in most countries including Mexico.

El Cid, I think you may be reading the tea leaves wrong. The PRD is more than just AMLO, and I think that players like the Cardenas, Amalia Garcia, Ebrard, and a number of others may now start to take a more active role in running the party. AMLO's future is now, and he knows it; if he loses here his political career is over, that is why he is fighting so hard. As it looks more and more like he did lose here, do not be surprised if he fades away into the Atenco/CGH/EZLN cult of personality world over the next few months, and ceases to have any relevance in serious Mexican politics.

In their miopic view of the world, rodolfo and Co. conveniently concentrate on election numbers, not procedures, and repeat plattitudes such as that stating that in democracy one wins or loses per one vote; never mind the margin of error unavoidable in a very complex enterprise such as a national election. The convenience of a andate is summarily disregarded: if 27 million Mexicans didn't vote for AMLO, also 27 million Mexicans abstained from voting altogether or voted for other than Calderon.

Ariel Orellana certainly has made his best effort to convince us of the impossibility of fraud, by describing with excruciating detail how voting happened. However, I cannot imagine a system designed by humans that is totally immune to fraud commited also by humans (e.g. one person introduccing more than one ballot in a ballot box). Personally, I'm not optimistic that the court will do the right thing. But the law and the evidence are there. For the benefit of those holding by their nails to quantitative differences, here it goes:

"LEY GENERAL DEL SISTEMA DE MEDIOS DE IMPUGNACIÓN EN MATERIA ELECTORAL

ARTÍCULO 75
1. La votación recibida en una casilla será nula cuando se acredite cualesquiera de las siguientes causales:

...Existir irregularidades graves, plenamente acreditadas y no reparables
durante la jornada electoral o en las actas de escrutinio y cómputo que, en forma evidente, pongan en duda la certeza de la votación y sean determinantes para el resultado de la misma..."

I would be absolutely shocked if none of the polling stations are annuled. The number will depend on the way the judges interpret "serious irregularities."

The rest is amazingly fanatical diatribe. I have to confess that I'm a little startled by the acidity of the vitriol. rodolfo's ranting about what a liberal is deserve a prominent place in the museum of infamy.

My guess is that, for these Calderon's corybants, attempting to live one's live on the basis of evidence, showing intellectual flexibility in front of reality, is anathema: some of these strange human specimens seem to condone, even endorse a despicable act, if so doing advances their reactionary agenda: the end justifies all means...

The real reasons AMLO lost:

1. He ignored the northern states, Nuevo Leon in particular

2. He insulted many of the upper middle class (parasites) who might otherwise have supported him.

3. "Vicente Fox is not my president"

4. He never convinced voters that he was not a puppet of Hugo Chavez. For that matter he did not even try.

5. The first debate, stupid.

6. He surrounded himself with noxious dinosaurs from the PRI.

7. He managed to simultanously irritate the church, businessmen, the middle class and the entrepeneur class.

8. He made no real effort to get the votes of Mexicans in the United States, so the foriegn vote went for Calderon.

Now, the reasons AMLO says he lost.

1. Vast conspiracy involving the vatican, Fox, el Junque, the media, big business and who knows who else.

2. Everybody hates him.

3. The election was unfair. No, wait, the votes were counted wrong. No, wait, there was cyber fraud. No, wait, the election was unfair. No, wait, it is the PAN's fault that the PRD did not place poll watchers at all polling places. No, wait, the PAN was able to corrupt the PRD poll watchers. No, wait, AMLO has videos. Oops. No, wait, Coca Cola, Sabritas, Televisa and a number of other business (but NOT Telmex) stole the election. Or something like that.

Pasilla, what is the "right thing" you want the court to do? Serious question. Anull? Full recount? Only anull enough votes so AMLO wins? Call for a runoff (I wish they would...)?

And, until any fanitical diatribes, vitriol, or ranting from Calderon supporters approaches the personal threats and anti-semitism (not to mention mispellings) of cerain PRD supporters, it is hard to feel much sympathy.

Jerry B:

The right thing to do, in my humble opinion, would be to clean the election, whatever it takes. Simple enough, I think.

And I challenge you to find slander as baseless as some of the one used by some PAN sympathizers in this blog, in ANY posting by an AMLO supporter...

When it is impossible to reduce the error in an election to less than 1%, then this is not just a weakness in the law, it is a total lack of common sense (stupidity one could say).It is plain crazy (loco). Would you launch a space shuttle if you couldn't reduce errors to as little as possible? And here you have the case where congress did not forsee the possibility of such a close election..CRAZY (just like Floriduh! 2000).Do these congressmen read the papers?

Calderon following the law? Give me a break. It is EASY to follow the law when the law favors your position (Did not Salinas follow the laws that favor him?). Obrador would do exactly the same that Calderon is doing if their positions were reversed. FC has shown to be no better than AMLO.

What we are talking here is REAL LEADERSHIP: the willigness to take risks for the wellness of a country that has not had a decent president in more than 70 years. To the best of my knowledge, the tribunal has the power to order a new election and, if Calderon is NOT AFRAID of the result of that election, he should favor, lobby and support such a decision. He is (as some one pointed out) in an advantegeous position: Obrador's popularity is likely to be down because of the state of affairs in Mexico city; Calderon could then win a stronger and more viable position if he wins a run off. Right now, to the eyes of many people, FC will not be a legitimate president regardless of what the tribunal says.

Obrador can do all he wants but he would gather little or no support if he loses an election for more than 5-6%. Most Mexicans can be very poor, cynical but they are not stupid (unlike the congressmen who wrote the electoral law).

Pasilla:

Want slander? How bout "jewnited States of America?" Of course, I guess it's not slander if you agree with it.

"Clean the election, whatever it takes". OK, but what is "whatever it takes"? And, since margin of victory is within a statistical margin of error, NO ONE will ever be 100% sure it was right. So, what is your suggestion?

For No Name, why should Calderon lobby for anullment? He won. And, in case you are not up to snuff on the electoral law, in case of anullment, congress, by a two thirds vote, elects an interim president. That two thirds requirement means we hand our future for the next 18 months to nobody else but the PRI, as they will be the controlling bloc in congress. Since AMLO is an ex PRIista himself, and hews exactly to the PRI party line from about 1975, this, to him, may not be a bad thing. To the rest of us, giving ANY kind of power back to the PRI rats would be a disgrace.

Seems to me like this Scott Coleman is with the guys who support United Colors of Benetton-Subcomandante Marcos and The Otra Campaña Circus traveling movement.
These people are like a cancer, they belong to anti-globalization groups and radical organizations from around the world who support the most fundamentalist groups including terrorist organizations.
Here in Mexico these people have come in support of the child molester Subcomandante Marcos who sleeps with indian girls from Chiapas.
These imbecile supporters of Marcos United Colors of Bennetton have the slightest idea of what is really happening in Mexico. They get some money from dictators like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and other corrupted dictatorships. They are the same ones who cheer Hugo Chavez and Castro wherever they go.
Scott Coleman has written other interesting articles where he expresses his hatred of democracy and America, he loves Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and Osama Bin Laden and he has written some interesting stuff in defense of the terrorists who killed thousands of americans on September 11.
Please just dismiss his comments here.

El Cid,

My point about El Cid is that in the face of assured defeat he had the will to face his fate with no illusions of success. I was obviously using the Hollywood version of his life. He accepted imminent failure standing. He went into his demise like a man. In the face of terrible defeat he went down and saved his honor. He didn't ask for an enemy recount and complain at the unfairness of it all. He was admired.

What is revolting to me is that you have a race and all contenders accepted the rules. There was a winner and four losers. Three losers accepted the election results and one decides to make a racket.

If Calderon had lost and started bringing up "fraud" charges and doing all the antics I would be directing my rants at him and his cadre of weaseling liars.

What is at stake is the future of Mexican democracy. We have to have laws that apply equally to any and all. There are a lot of us that hate patronizing authoritarians that know what's good for us. Their word is the new law, to hell with "spurious" laws. They couldn't care about laws. They are the new and only law.

Emptyboxes, maybe Marcos and Daniel Ortega can get together and kind of have an orgy with 14 year old girls. Seems like they have the same tastes. O well, at least they like girls.

JerryB:

Have you been reading the newspapers recently? How about the big push given to your candidate by the illustrious former PRI member Elba Gordillo? How about the gracious adhesion of PAN to the PRI candidate in Chiapas? Who is making "wise" alliances (emptyboxes dixit)?

On the other hand, you are creating a big storm in a tea cup with the infamous "jewnited States of America." The slanderous content of the frase is in your head, really. In itself it doesn't mean a thing...

If the cleanning of the election passes by the road of annulment, so be it. Your hysteria leads you to see things that are unlikely. How do you know that a member of the PRI will be appointed as interim president? Besides, you use every opportunity to remind us that PAN has a relative majority in both houses of congress. The mandate of an interim president is limited almost strictly to organizing the election. That will be an opportunity to introduce the runoff that you seem to favor to death; by the way, don't speculate: the TEPJF cannot write electoral law. I personally am doubtful about the conveninence of a runoff, but it's the congress' job to decide about it.

It's a lot simpler to repeat ad nauseum the same themes: the PRI is evil, AMLO is a former member of PRI, AMLO is evil, irrelevant, crazy... (fill the blank).

The country is in deep trouble, and we need people who doesn't shy away from their responsibilities.

From the practical point of view,
18 months of an interim president (even if it is from the sobpri, which I DOUBT IT would happen given that only 24% voted for the PRI) is way better than a "selected" president for 6 years.The only way to have an elected president is when the margin of the winner is larger than the error. By that measure,FC did not win the election.

So far FC has shown to be a politician in the bad sense of the world.FC IS NO better than AMLO or any other PRI guy. FC so far is more interested in scoring political points than in real progress.A real statesman would be willing to take a risk or to reach out to his adversary to find the best choice for Mexico. (where is a Morelos or a Lincoln?).

On the other hand, is it possible to find out if the policies of 1975 by LEA could be more effective than the ones implemented by Fox? If you can find an and the answer happen to be Yes: LEA policies are better for Mexico; then by all means, mexicans go ahead and find some one (amlo or fc may do) who can implement them. Pragmatism above ideology that is what is needed!!

pasilla,

I have to say I admire your stoicism. There are four or five of us ganging up on you and you just won't be silenced! I apologize to you for the barrage, it's not personal.

As you rightly say Calderon was also not elected by more than 55 million registered voters but the rules say you win by one vote, not by raising complete falsehoods such as "fraud" "cochinero" "ballot stuffing" "taqueo" and countless more colorful fabrications. They're conveniently ad hoc but baseless and proofless.

I don't think the July 2 election was perfect and error free. No election in the WORLD is. What is disgusting is that the PRD losers taint this effort with their unseemly fabrications. Calderon got the most votes, period.

emptyboxes:
what's with your ad hominem attacks? do you know what that is? That's when you attack someone's character instead of the substance of their debate. It's kind of like saying "Scott Coleman tried to buy Hitler's underwear on eBay so please just ignore his comments" I hate to school you like this-- it's so off topic.

no... no money from castro here. or bin laden. in fact, i've even helped cuban political refugees resettle in the EEUU. Quien diablos es Scott? Not who you think. I've posted exactly 3 "articles" in my life. And this is the 3rd. Ciao!

but this isn't about me or you. it's about having a real democracy in mexico. can we get back to the topic now that you've convinced all that Scott Coleman loves Osama?

btw, can you post some link to some of those articles you think I wrote? This Scott Coleman sounds interesting.

rodolfo:

"Calderon got the most votes, period."

Your opinion is as good as mine. But Calderon has not been declared president elect, and if he is under the present circumstances, he (for whom I don't care much) and Mexico (for which I do care deeply) should unfortunately be prepared for a wild ride. All frivolous banter about the sexual preferences of Marcos and Daniel Ortega aside...

drgecc,

You have no idea what the economic debacle we had in 1970-1988 was like. In the U.S. double digit inflation shortened Carter's tenure to one term. Even the New York Times published an editorial endorsing Reagan, if you can beleive it.

LEA started an inflation spiral that took until the 21 first century to contain. Prices changed monthly or weekly. A quart of milk would double in price from one day to the next. In your country if your economy reached triple digit inflation like we did, the sitting president would have been summarily impeached and sent directly to jail. Don't preach here that LEA was any good. He was a failure.

pasilla,

Jorge Castaneda wrote an article for Newsweek after the Mexican election and said whoever wins will be getting the toughest job in the world.

rodolfo:

Wasn't Fox's presidency a failure too? See the nice electoral mess that he dragged the country into, due to his political tone-deafness. The presidency of "nothing happened." Why should anybody believe that things will be different under the "President of continuity"?

Jorge Castaneda has written so many self-serving things (granted, in a sharp, clean English). It's interesting that he failed to find a party that backed him up in his failed presidential venture. Too exquiste for the "masses," I guess.

Scott: Nobody believes what you said about helping Cubans resettled anywhere.
Fact is you support this totalitarian regimes and their lies and you support that child molester called Marcos. You and that hypocrite of John Ross are going around spreading all kinds of cocaine stories.
You and him and Al Giordano and other people who participate in pro-socialist and pro-communist campaigns are anti-americans, anti-semitic and anti-democracy. But we already know you and your stupid cocaine bolivarian dreams. Go and lick Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro's feet.

scott coleman

When you posted inadvertently the gigantic screed from narconews, it was like you were dragging Donald Rumsfeld into Osama's tent. Mexicans see as patronizing condescention when an American feels he has a duty to enlighten us about our unjust society.

As I see it, this blog is about Mexico's post-election maelstrom. Join the party!

pasilla,

I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories of any kind. Mexico is in a transition and cotinuity succeeded over change because I beleive the change Lopez advocates is back to centralized authoritarian presidentialism. Remember Salinas?

pasilla said:
"However, I cannot imagine a system designed by humans that is totally immune to fraud commited also by humans (e.g. one person introduccing more than one ballot in a ballot box)."

Serial Numbers + station id + watermarks on ballots. Just like the current system.

I've actually said that yes, its conceivable for fraud to occur under extreme conditions: all officials and representatives colluded, but not likely to work on even a small scale, say, more than 10 stations.

Oh, and even though I do not agree with rodolfo and emptyboxes on several things, AMLO's supporters talking about the end justifying the means sounds a lot like the pot calling the kettle black.

Finally, pasilla said:
"On the other hand, you are creating a big storm in a tea cup with the infamous "jewnited States of America." The slanderous content of the frase is in your head, really. In itself it doesn't mean a thing..."

Again, even if I were to agree that that hatefull phrase means nothing by itself (which I don't), the fact of the matter is maya used it in a VERY, VERY hatefull post. How is it you can stand by on this issue but express that you "disapprove" of my use of the phrase "don't feed the troll" because its using "cute language"? You didn't think that one got by me, did you?

Here is an email from an a PRD Follower who has been unemployed for 7 years already, this fellow is at the planton in Reforma right now, we sometime exchange some communication:

"Emptyboxes:

You are an asjole moderfaked, me hate yu verry munch, me luv AMLO, vote by vote, me luv nacha guevara and Saddam husein, and me luv Osama very much. Me happy americans tower falling down, me happy americans crushed by arab terrorists, me luv arab terrorist.

emptyboxes: me very poor, me need job but PRD culos no give me much mony, prd pay 500 pesitos week, me sleep bad, me smell bad. me need work.

Fuk yu emptyboxes, yu dog, me hate yu. yu and yu mommy are bad piple.

viva AMLO! Viva Osama! vote by vote! viva rigo tovar!

emptyboxes,

You are gettin very close to overt bigotry
and away from satire.

rodolfo:
thanks for the fyi and welcome. I'll be more careful.

but just not yet. Aren't we all Americans? i'm pretty sick
of USA residents (oops, I should say 'citizens') thinking
that an 'American' is someone who lives North of the Bravo
and South of Niagra.

emptyboxes:
i don't expect you to believe me, so verify my Cuban claim.
Call Refugee Services of North Texas. I worked for them in '97.
Ask about Juan Munoz if my name doesn't ring a bell immediately.
See if Pat still works there, or Chip, or Hamid.

i don't support AMLO per se-- I just support a recount.

Why is that so hard to stomach?

Recount the votes, annul the whole election if you have to
and start over. Just let the people vote and let each vote
count.

Just b/c someone supports a full recount doesn't mean they are
a communist, a terrorist, or a facist, or a sore loser.

Let the chips fall where they may.

LEA was a terrible president but my understanding is that he did not start the triple digit inflation. It started, as you know Rodolfo, with the next President (lopez portillo). To say that the policies of LEA lead to the debacle of the 80's, well that is a bit of a huge stretch. Also, my understanding is that the hyper-inflation in Mexico never never reach what happened in Argentina or Brazil where, in fact, a liter of milk would go up twice as much EVERY day for a month or so. In Mexico, it was the day after the currency devaluation (and not every day) when you saw the rise of prices. This triple digit inflation, in fact, only happened for about three years (not in a row) and that was a decade after LEA ended his term. Indeed, after Salinas left, there was a year of triple digit inflation, was this inflation the result of policies implemented 20 years before (1973-74)? I think that it is unlikely.

Regarding the 1975 policies, it is interesting to note that since the 70's, the number of illegal aliens from Mexico has increased ten fold whereas the mexican population as a whole has increased at most threefold (a conservative estimate from US Congress). By this measure one can conclude that the policies of the 70's (presumably amlo/pri policies) seem to have been more effective for creating decent job opportunities for Mexicans than the policies of the Fox administration.I hope that whoever is the winner realize that this is a DISGRACE and decides to take responsibility for the problem. Unfortunately, just like the US is addicted to oil, the Mexican government is addicted to the remittances of illegal immigrants. Since Fox is president, according to El Banco de Mexico (see the webpage), the amount of remittances (as a percentage of the GDP) has increased every year during his administration. Even Zedillo seemed to have done better than Fox in this area. Is Fox a failure? Well, in this area he seems to be. Is Felipe Calderon going to CONTINUE such a shameful record if he is declared president?

Scott:
"i don't support AMLO per se-- I just support a recount.
Why is that so hard to stomach?
Recount the votes, annul the whole election if you have to
and start over. Just let the people vote and let each vote
count."
Why is so hard to stomach the fact that Felipe Calderon won?
Why should the people vote again? Says who? How many are behind AMLO and his claims?
There are 5 political parties in our country and only one is saying there was fraud?
Why there wasn't any fraud in the Senator and congressmen Elections? They were counted by the same hands.
Why there wasn't any fraud in the DF Government election? They occured at the same place and time and the same citizens voted there and they were counted with the same representatives standing there.
Why only in the Presidential Elections?
How many fraud allegations is AMLO going to denounce? First they said it was cyberfraud, then "a la antiguita", then with the Actas, later the packages were opened afterwards.
The Actas were signed by all prd representatives, that is the fact they cannot explain or deny.
What guarantees do we have that AMLO and PRD will respect another election, or even another recount?

And Scott, you fool nobody, we know what the narconews site is all about, they even have banners of the La Otra Campaña there.
They are the same ones who go to Venezuela to Hugo Chavez socialist cocaine conventions all the time. You are puppets of Dictators like him and if tomorrow he indicates you to support Bush you will do it automatically.
And if you do not wish to be labeled like them then don´t used them as sources of information.

scott coleman,

You are welcome. I agree completely that all borders should be erased. We're all humans living a very short time in this world. There was a time when you could move from one country to another and with a simple notice to the local post office you declared your new residence and you were set, no questions asked. Passports had not yet been invented. Go tell that to the Homeland Security Department, or Mexico's Foreign Office.

On the issue of a recount, it's not up to me, Calderon or a rising choir of protest. The rules are that the Electoral Tribunal gets to decide that. The Tribunal (TEPJF)
has started their proceedings and all discussion about about the votes and whatever is merely shooting blanks in the air. The seven good people of the TEPJF are going to tell us no later than 9/6 who the winner is. The rest is idle speculation and I love the fun. Election junkies like me don't get to witness a mess like this that often.

"Regarding the 1975 policies, it is interesting to note that since the 70's, the number of illegal aliens from Mexico has increased ten fold whereas the mexican population as a whole has increased at most threefold (a conservative estimate from US Congress). By this measure one can conclude that the policies of the 70's (presumably amlo/pri policies) seem to have been more effective for creating decent job opportunities for Mexicans than the policies of the Fox administration.I hope that whoever is the winner realize that this is a DISGRACE and decides to take responsibility for the problem."

drgecc: you seem to ignore the demographics of the seventies and eighties. Your post also assumes that President Fox governed under similar conditions when all these presidents enjoyed complete PRI dominated congresses. You also imply that policies implemented by a president take effect inmediately when it is not completely so, Reagan and Bush the Father deregulated the US Economy but it was Clinton who enjoyed the results of these measures.
According to you President Fox has implemented all his policies when it has been exactly the oppossite. Congress has modified and limited everyone of his budgets and the PRD and PRI completely blocked all his reforms, they dedicated their precious time to pass stupid laws about how to promote the use of condons and tatoos, they basically legislated for protection of punks.
President Fox is not the only responsible for those people going to the USA in search of better jobs. Our government has three branches and congress needs to learn to co-govern and to share and take responsibility of the economical and social situation.

Apparently, Humpty-Dumpty is calling for an insurrection already.
He is calling to an end to the "Republica Simulada" as he put it. He says he won and Period!.
This cookie is definitely crazy.

drgecc,

You had to be here to experience the beauty of it all. I'm sure you can imagine paying 2000 DOLLARS for a hot dog and feel it's not really that bad. Mexico's problem is that it happened, REALLY. And it would happen year in year out, for thirty years in a row. LEA TRIPLED the minimum wage in six years. If you think thats really not that bad, you should run for president. Would a campaign promise like that get you elected?
The sole idea is preposterous. You would be laughed away at the Iowa caucus. Mexico's problem is that it happened for three decades in a row, really.

The reason for this nightmare was Mexico was run by an authoritarian presidential figure that ran the country as an absolute monarch. Lopez ran Mexico City like that, let's not forget he learned all his tricks as a PRI political insider. He left because he was not given Tabasco's governorship. Yes, governorships were given like fiefdoms to political Favorites. The PRI was unstoppable for more than 70 years. You had to be here for the beauty of it.

"Here is an email from an a PRD Follower who has been unemployed for 7 years already, this fellow is at the planton in Reforma right now, we sometime exchange some communication...

...me very poor, me need job but PRD culos no give me much mony, prd pay 500 pesitos week, me sleep bad, me smell bad. me need work.

Fuk yu emptyboxes, yu dog, me hate yu. yu and yu mommy are bad piple...

Posted by: emptyboxes | August 15, 2006 07:39 PM
-----------------------------------

emptyboxes:
Are you sure you're not corresponding with Tarzan? Ask your pen pal his opinions of Jane, Cheetah, and what drums say.

emptyboxes,

I don't know Scott but in the U.S. social work is a paid profession. He is probably a social worker and not an idle leftist busybody with nothing better to do. I believe he does work to help people and is not just blowing hot air.

May I submit for everyone's amusement the news: EL CID IS LECTURING EMPTYBOXES ABOUT TARZAN, CHEETAH and DRUMS SPEAKING.

I like this place...

Emptyboxes:

First, a side comment, the logic that the Clinton economy was after all a result of the bush and reagan policies, it is a fallacy (rewriting history some one would say)propagated by the Reaganites. To attribute the economic boom of the Clinton era (1997 second term) to tax cuts implemente by Reagan in 1982-83 is a HUGE STRETCH to say the least. Also let us remember that during the reagan era unemployment was noticeably higher than during the clinton's second term and Reagan himself had to raise taxes later in his administration.

Yes, Reagan was a good president and a great leader. This can be clearly seen from the fact that even with ALL congress against him (dominated by dems then), he was able to persuade enough people to pass through congress his economic package. A remarkable achievement. Obviously Fox is not Reagan by any stretch of the imagination. Bottom line, Fox failed to deliver. Is his protege Calderon going to implement such policies if he becomes president? Let us hope not, we might as well open the borders.

Or are you going to attribute
the success of Reagan economic policies to a democratic congress (shared governance) since after all they were the ones that decided to approve the economic package of Reagan? (As you know Bush senior had to deal with a dem congress too). I do not think so. The executive is the ultimate responsible for economic policy here, mexico, china, every where. Consecuently,
Fox did not deliver what he promised and Mexico is in really serious trouble now!

Rodolfo:
I could not care less who he or anyone else in this forum is.
The fact is we live in an information world but it is your responsibility to get informed well, and to find those sources of information that tell the facts as they happen, and to distiguish among those who edit and ommit and accomodate those same facts to fit their political, economical or social agenda.
All the last week Reforma, El Universal, Excelsior, Milenio, all the noticieros televisa, TV Azteca, Multimedios, Radio Formula, Imagen Informativa, and many others, all of them reported the progress of the reocount of the 11 thousand Casillas as normal and without any big incidents, little errors and very little irregularities with absolutely no influence on the election results. On the same days, La Jornada reported massive fraud, ballot stuffing and else, how did they do that without lying? Simple, in their Front Page they published something like this: "Massive Fraud Found in the Recount"
Then, in the second page where the complete story was told, in the small print you could read: "According to PRD Officials"
This are difamatory tactics and offend people who voted like me. These people from La Jornada are the same as Scott sources of information, they are anti-american, anti-semitic, is simple to find out, just go to their site, find the Search box and type something like "Septiembre 11" and you will find hundreds of articles that cover the September 11 attacks and all of them, absolutely all of them, in the light of the reasons why those poor terrorists carried out the attacks, they cover the attacks in the light of the USA interventions and they blame the Americans for that, and apologize and sometimes openly support those terrorists. One of the most important contributor of this communist newspaper is Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, she is now a PRD Congresswoman, she laughed and cry of happiness when those people were falling from the towers and getting killed, she said the americans had it coming. Anti-Americanism is one of the foundations of the Mexican Left. Anti-Semitism is the other, if you type in the Search Box, Israel, you will find many articles about the israel-palestinian issue, and all of them, again, absolutely all of them, cover the issue in the light of the poor and indefense palestinian victims, every day they publish a photo of Palestinian or arab victims of the Israel soldiers, but I have yet to see in their pages one single, only one single photo of a jewish victim of a suicide palestinian attack in Jerusalem.

I am sorry if scott or whatever his name is reads and believes the kind of cocaine conspiracy theories published by La Jornada and repeated by these silly and difamatory websites, without giving the benefit of the doubt to the great mayority of free and non-partisan newspapers where thounsands of honest journalists work and if does not take care of reading about the opinion of people like Jose Woldemberg or Federico Reyes Heroles or any other serious and respected and unbiased writer or intellectual in our country. If however he is knowingly and irresponsibly following the agenda of these PRD Bastards and that is why he comes here to participate in the difamation attempts of the PRD to destroy the credibility of our institutions then he shouldn't expect a warm welcoming. At least not by me. But who cares?

"Or are you going to attribute
the success of Reagan economic policies to a democratic congress (shared governance) since after all they were the ones that decided to approve the economic package of Reagan? (As you know Bush senior had to deal with a dem congress too). I do not think so."

I certainly recognize congress did cooperateed with Reagan. But that has always happened, cooperation is normal in well established democracies.
Mexico is not a well established democracy.
Zedillo and Fox went through a congress that did not cooperate at all. That is not the entire responsibility of Fox, rather of the ideological dogmatism of the parties, everyone to their own project. I will expect Mexico as a whole to make progress on that.

drgecc: If you do not think triple digit inflation is a bad thing, you did not live in Latin American in the '80s or early '90s. Trust me, it sucks. I had the privilege of (because I am a filthy rich fascist) studying in Brazil in 1989 for a month, 1990 for a year, and then returning in 1993 for another month. In 1989, the exchange rate was BR2.50 to US$1
In 1990, when I got there, it was 77.50 to 1. When I left, it was 200 to one. In 1993, when I got there in early January, it was 13,000 to one, and 14,500 to one at the end of the month. With this kind of wackiness, if you want to borrow 20 bucks from a friend over a weekend, you have to negotiate an interest rate first. The rich are absolutely not bothered by this, as they simply keep their money in bank accounts in Miami. The middle class keep their money in inflation indexed local currency accounts, and are somewhat protected. The poor, who AMLO loves, are screwed, and without vaseline. They cannot save, they cannot buy ANYTHING on credit, and they cannot accumulate capital. But, then again, they remain poor, ripe fodder for any loudmouth populist who comes along.

It never got that bad here in Mexico, but, for example, I remember the '87 Liga Mexicana del Pacifico season when they had to play without foreign players because they could not pay them. I remember many friends of mine losing houses, cars and livelyhoods because they could no longer pay debts. I remember how NOBODY could buy a house on credit. And, I remember how the rich, in Mexico, deposited their money in the US, and were not affected at all. As Claudia Shienbaum, Carlos Monsivais, and Murat et al will not be affected if inflation ever returns.

So, Yes, some of us do have a paranoia about inflation. In my case, it is not personal, inflation would be the best thing in the world for me because I earn dollars. Give me a couple years of Brazilian style inflation, and I will own half of Tijuana. But God help the poor. And, since, unlike many AMLO backers, I think about the greater good, I really do not want to see a return to those inflatonary days of the past.

Also, ANYONE who think LEA, the arquitect of Tlatelolco in '68, was not a disaster, they need their heads examined. It is like saying Chavez is not a disaster in Venezuela because the price of oil has not dropped yet. But it will, and Venezuela will pay dearly, as we paid dearly for LEA and Lopez Portillo (bark bark!!!)

May I submit for everyone's amusement the news: EL CID IS LECTURING EMPTYBOXES ABOUT TARZAN, CHEETAH and DRUMS SPEAKING.

I like this place...

Posted by: rodolfo | August 15, 2006 10:00 PM
------------------------------

I was not lecturing. I was only asking. I could lecture, at glorious length about Tarzan and the Edgar Rice Burroughs novels he comes from and the colonial heritage in which it was situated, but then just as I would be getting started rodolfo would carefully remind me that we are only to discuss Mexico's 2006 elections here.

I don't know if you ever saw the classic Tarzan black & white movies starring athlete turned actors such as Johnny Weismuller, but in these movies Tarzan never mastered the use of pronouns and subjects.

Take "I". Tarzan never says, "I like Jane," but "Me like Jane."

Auxiliary verbs are also a problem, such as as "Jane, do not go there," instead something like "Jane no go there," or "Cheetah no like guns."

Compare this with emptyboxes' sardonic quotation of his stereotypical PRD member, who, of course, has no job, stinks, and likes Osama bin Laden:

"...me very poor, me need job but PRD culos no give me much mony, prd pay 500 pesitos week, me sleep bad, me smell bad. me need work."

Now, just assuming that emptyboxes and his PRD friend are both corresponding in Spanish, what was the original?

Did our poor, lazy, evil friend say "I am very poor," or "Me very poor?" Did he say "Soy pobre"? or did he say something like "Pobre es yo?"

Hence the question: was his PRD friend actually Tarzan? Or a close relative of Tarzan who speaks in the same unique style?

Or was he the product of cocaine scientist education?

drgecc: If you do not think triple digit inflation is a bad thing, you did not live in Latin American in the '80s or early '90s. Trust me, it sucks. I had the privilege of (because I am a filthy rich fascist) studying in Brazil in 1989 for a month, 1990 for a year, and then returning in 1993 for another month. In 1989, the exchange rate was BR2.50 to US$1
In 1990, when I got there, it was 77.50 to 1. When I left, it was 200 to one. In 1993, when I got there in early January, it was 13,000 to one, and 14,500 to one at the end of the month. With this kind of wackiness, if you want to borrow 20 bucks from a friend over a weekend, you have to negotiate an interest rate first. The rich are absolutely not bothered by this, as they simply keep their money in bank accounts in Miami. The middle class keep their money in inflation indexed local currency accounts, and are somewhat protected. The poor, who AMLO loves, are screwed, and without vaseline. They cannot save, they cannot buy ANYTHING on credit, and they cannot accumulate capital. But, then again, they remain poor, ripe fodder for any loudmouth populist who comes along.

It never got that bad here in Mexico, but, for example, I remember the '87 Liga Mexicana del Pacifico season when they had to play without foreign players because they could not pay them. I remember many friends of mine losing houses, cars and livelyhoods because they could no longer pay debts. I remember how NOBODY could buy a house on credit. And, I remember how the rich, in Mexico, deposited their money in the US, and were not affected at all. As Claudia Shienbaum, Carlos Monsivais, and Murat et al will not be affected if inflation ever returns.

So, Yes, some of us do have a paranoia about inflation. In my case, it is not personal, inflation would be the best thing in the world for me because I earn dollars. Give me a couple years of Brazilian style inflation, and I will own half of Tijuana. But God help the poor. And, since, unlike many AMLO backers, I think about the greater good, I really do not want to see a return to those inflatonary days of the past.

Also, ANYONE who thinks LEA, the arquitect of Tlatelolco in '68, was not a disaster, they need their heads examined. It is like saying Chavez is not a disaster in Venezuela because the price of oil has not dropped yet. But it will, and Venezuela will pay dearly, as we paid dearly for LEA and Lopez Portillo (bark bark!!!)

Anybody heard of MayaO recently? Maybe he´s got lost a couple of blogs back! Should I go and find him? We need a bit of (accidental) humour here.

No name who posted above, the Clinton era economy was a typical post war (post cold war in this case) economy. The cold war ended in 1989. For three years the US economy went into the tank (housing prices declined by HALF in California) and Bush Sr. got blamed for it. But, the same thing happened in 1918 to 1921 and 1945 to 48. Then, just like after WWI and II, the economy came roaring back due to reduced military spending and the country went on a roll. Clinton could have really screwed things up, but didn't, but to claim that he somehow "caused" the boom of the 90s is facetous. Donald Duck could have managed that economy.

Someone above pointed out that illegal immigration to the US has increased. Of course it has. The US is booming, if anyone has not noticed. In 2005, they recorded a record number if illegals from the following countries:

Mexico
El Salvador
Guatemala
Honduras
Dom. Rep.
Philipines
China
Brazil (2004, in 2005 Mexico made Brazilians get visas which kind of crimped their style)
Uruguay and Argentina (both thrown out of the visa waiver program in 2002, due to too many overstays.)

Is this ALL Fox's fault?

rodolfo:

The numbers do not lie. There was less illegal immigration in the 70's than in the Fox years. And the hyperinflation that you are talking about, you make it sound that it happened for twenty or thirty years in a row. That is A BUNCH OF BALONEY. If I t