Mexican leftist asks for presidential recount
MEXICO CITY |
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The runner-up in Mexico’s presidential election said on Tuesday he would ask election authorities to recount the votes from Sunday’s contest, alleging it was riddled with fraud.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who finished about 6.5 percentage points behind President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), said the election had been corrupted by PRI vote-buying and other abuses.
Stirring up memories of the 2006 election, when he refused to accept defeat and upset markets with big demonstrations, Lopez Obrador followed through on hints he dropped during the campaign that he might contest the result.
Lopez Obrador said his campaign would ask the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) to recount the votes.
“We’re going to ask them to clean up the election and make it transparent,” the fiery orator told reporters in Mexico City. “For the good of the democracy and the good of the country, they need to count all the votes.”
Markets were unmoved by his announcement on Tuesday.
Lopez Obrador, 58, has repeatedly accused the telegenic Pena Nieto of using illicit funding, breaching campaign spending limits and being supported by Mexico’s mainstream media.
“It’s a national embarrassment how the PRI’s leaders and their sponsors have acted, and the totally immoral way in which Enrique Pena Nieto has behaved,” Lopez Obrador said.
The PRI denies the accusations.
Pena Nieto’s win on Sunday will return the PRI to power after 12 years in opposition when he takes office in December. The PRI governed Mexico between 1929 and 2000, a rule that was blighted by frequent accusations of vote-rigging and corruption.
CLAIMS OF FRAUD
Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, also sought a recount when he narrowly lost the 2006 election to President Felipe Calderon and claimed he had been robbed.
Lopez Obrador’s campaign manager, Ricardo Monreal, said his team was asking for a recount of all the polling booths.
Unlike in 2006, total recounts are now
You can read the rest of this article at:: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/03/us-mexico-election-leftist-idUSBRE86216W20120703
Short URL: http://thepresidency.us/?p=17911
Posted by RobertButler
on Jul 3 2012. Filed under 2012 Presidential Campaign.
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