Mexican presidential struggle mounts

World Cup soccer fans were not the only ones waiting with bated breath for a passionately awaited outcome this past week. The presidential elections in Mexico also had the world’s attention. Who will be the next president of Mexico? Will it be the pro-U.S. candidate Felipe Calderón of the conservative PAN (National Action Party) or is it Andrés Manuel López Obrador, of the left-leaning PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution)?

On July 8, approximately half a million people took to the streets of Mexico City.

Revolutionary and progressive forces around the world are intently following political developments in Mexico. Much is at stake in this strategic country of over 100 million people. Mexico is, after all, at the very front door of the United States, making this nation the only oppressed Third World country that shares a border with the colossus monster that is U.S. im per ialism, Mexico’s unmerciful oppressor.

Not just who will next administer the state in Mexico is at stake. Will the state of the masses be genuinely addressed, for the benefit of the people? Will the outcome of the elections lead to a government that is more in tune to the interests of the people, and less to world capitalist interests? Or will the elections lead to yet another government that is totally in the pocket of U.S. imperialism, leading to further capitalist domination?

As of this writing, election results are at a stalemate. But they are at a stalemate because López Obrador and his supporters are waging a significant struggle against perceived voter fraud. Most important, it is a struggle that the revolutionary movement can be encouraged by because a decisive factor has arisen: the Mexican people are playing a major role in this struggle. The Mexican masses are not just sitting idly by awaiting an outcome from higher up.

Struggle in the country mounts

On July 8, as a result of a call put out by López Obrador, approximately half a million people took to the streets of Mexico City. They gathered at the famous Zócalo, a main plaza in Mexico City that has a long history of revolutionary gatherings. The people convened to demand their right to a fair election and to repudiate the official results.

On July 6, Mexico’s Federal Elec toral Institute (IFE) announced that pro-U.S. candidate, Felipe Calderón, was the presumed victor. But the margin for his victory was so slight that it immediately raised suspicion. The vote was 36.37 percent for Calderón and 35.37 percent for López Obrador, a narrow margin of only 243,000 more votes for Calderón.

The slight margin in favor of Calderón smelled fishy. And sure enough, the PRD was immediately able to show irregularities in the election.

As a result of López Obrador refusing to cave in to the results of the IFE, the pro cess must now go through other channels. The IFE has until Aug. 31 to rule on whether it will grant López Obrador’s request for a recount. If it does, the next step is to the highest electoral court in the country, the Federal Judicial Electoral Tribunal, which must then carry out a ballot-by-ballot recount as requested by the PRD. The TEPJF (its Spanish acronym) has until Sept. 6 to declare a winner.

Evidence of fraud gathered

On July 9, López Obrador’s party, the PRD, turned over to the electoral court nine boxes of material that was evidence of fraud and a “dirty election campaign.” The PRD submitted a 900-page legal brief that substantiated the PRD’s claim of election fraud.

“We have proof that basic rules were flagrantly violated,” said Ricardo Monreal, a representative for López Obrador.

The brief states that some polling places had more votes than registered voters, that the PAN, the party of the current Mexican President, Vicente Fox, had funneled government money to Calderón’s campaign, and that spending limits had been violated.

The submitted material also contains campaign materials and electoral documents that substantiate the fraud. The material highlights irregularities at more than half the 300 district offices across the country.

It includes a video that showed voter fraud in Fox’s home state of Guanajuato, where someone is recorded illegally stuffing a ballot box in the race for Congress. Another video showed that election officials in the state of Querétaro had wrongly given Calderón 200 more votes than he had really won at one polling station alone.

According to La Jornada, a leading Mexican newspaper, in 11 out of 12 voting districts in Chiapas, distinct irregularities were documented. Many other states also reported voter irregularities.

In addition, the PRD alleges that a software program had been used that tampered with vote count reports. According to a July 8 Salon article, a PRD spokesperson at a press conference in Mexico City on July 7 drew comparisons of Mexico’s presidential election to the U.S. election in 2000, where it is popularly recognized that George Bush stole the election from African American, elderly and Jewish voters.

The PRD provided details where the “votes reported by the government’s preliminary tabulation system, called the PREP, did not match the actual voting record, always to the deficit of López Obrador and the benefit of Calderón, in one case by as many as 3,828 votes.”

According to a PRD spokesperson, the inconsistencies “cannot be chalked up to human error or deliberate destroying of paper votes, but to conspiracy, to a source code like the one ... designed in Florida that systematically moved votes from the PRD to the PAN.”

“We are going to enlist the help of information crime experts to look for a code inside the [electronic tabulation] system and then we need a recount, vote by vote,” continued the spokesperson.

Ruling class elements pushed back

The current PAN president, Vicente Fox, and the candidate, Felipe Calderón, are both denying fraud. Mexican officials and the right-wing press are attempting to pour cold water on the efforts by the PRD to contest the election by discrediting the claims of fraud. Calderón had the audacity to hold presidential-type meetings and discussions about national policy, and is looking into presidential appointees.

Calderón, a former energy minister, has reason to be confident. The IFE is controlled by the PAN and contains not a single PRD affiliate.

Calderón made several policy announ cements, including stating that he was against the proposed U.S./Mexico border wall—a bone thrown as a result of the mass sympathy that exists in Mexico for immigrants in the U.S. and against U.S. immigration policy. While López Obrador is for renegotiating NAFTA, Calderón is for further privatization and U.S. economic domination.

Once the masses went into motion and clear examples of fraud were documented, the election was clearly put into question. Yet many foreign representatives sent messages of congratulations to Felipe Cal derón, including the presidents of Guate mala, Colombia and Spain. Presi dent Geo rge Bush sent an early message of congratulations, but according to La Jornada, Wash ington said it would remain open to later results.

Interestingly, the Financial Times of Eng land was reported in La Jornada to state that the vote should be counted fairly.

Solidarity from the U.S. urgent

There is an old saying in Mexico: “So far from God, so close to the United States.”

Make no mistake about it; Washington may have its hands full with the unjust war in Iraq, the crisis in Palestine and so on. But imperialism is intimately involved in developments in Mexico. The only reason Calderón has not been declared a winner is because a mass struggle has been waged.

In the U.S., solidarity with the Mexican people is of the utmost urgency. The hand of imperialism can easily determine the course of the elections. Washington prefers the PAN, which is a party with clear capitalist interests anxious to continue the sell-off of Mexico’s resources for its own gain.

But when the Mexican masses rallied on Saturday at the Zócalo, it was a signal that enough is enough. For decades, the government of Mexico has been complicit with U.S. ideology. Fair elections have historically been denied to the Mexican masses. The struggle for a López Obrador victory is a reflection of a struggle for basic bourgeois democratic rights, a right that imperialism and the Mexican bourgeoisie want to continue to deny.

How far will this struggle go? Will the yearning to end exploitation and imperialist domination intensify? Will the forces behind change in Mexico prevail? Only time will tell.

Here in the U.S., the task of the progressive and revolutionary movement is to demand respect for the peoples’ will in Mexico, to demand an end to pro-U.S. governments, to call for fair elections and a repeal of NAFTA, as well as solidarity with the Mexican people and full rights for Mexican and all immigrants.