How Long Before Civil War In Mexico?

[xrayzebra]

Looks like the lefty is gearing up to start something in Mexico. He has
stated he wont accept any vote except his winning the election.

We will have refugees coming across the border in droves. It is not going to
be pretty.


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Contender Alleges Mexico Vote Was Rigged
Populist's Plan for Legal Challenge Ignites Boisterous Crowd at Massive Rally in Capital

By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, July 9, 2006; A01



MEXICO CITY, July 8 -- Downtown Mexico City swelled Saturday with the ac ulated frustration and rage of the poor, who were stoked into a sign-waving, fist-pumping frenzy by new fraud allegations that failed populist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador hopes will overturn the results of Mexico's presidential election.

López Obrador ignited the smoldering emotions of his followers Saturday morning, alleging for the first time that Mexico's electoral commission had rigged its computers before the July 2 election to ensure the half-percentage-point victory of Felipe Calderón, a champion of free trade. In a news conference before the rally, López Obrador called Calderón "an employee" of Mexico's powerful upper classes and said a victory by his conservative opponent would be "morally impossible."

López Obrador added a new layer of complexity to the crisis by saying he not only would challenge the results in the country's special elections court but also would attempt to have the election declared illegal by Mexico's Supreme Court. That strategy presages a cons utional confrontation because according to many legal experts the special elections court is the only body that can hear election challenges.

Calderón was declared the winner Thursday and has begun publicly presenting his plans for Mexico, even though López Obrador has refused to concede. European Union election observers have said they found no significant irregularities in the vote, and many Mexicans appeared to accept Calderón as their next president.

López Obrador's approach pairs legal maneuvers with mass public pressure. On Saturday, he gave a mega-display of street power, drawing an estimated 280,000 people into the city center on a humid, drizzly afternoon, according to a Mexico City government estimate.

The crowd chanted, "Strong, strong!" when López Obrador stepped to the microphone. The former Mexico City mayor then declared that the electoral commission had "played with the hopes" of millions of Mexicans by allegedly rigging the vote total. Thousands chanted back: "You are not alone!"

López Obrador also told the crowd that he was organizing a march to the capital Wednesday from all over Mexico, including states hundreds of miles distant.

"This is, and will continue to be, a peaceful movement," he said. Seconds later, he announced another mass rally, this one for July 16, at which the crowd raucously yelled back: "What time?"

During his 40-minute address, López Obrador stressed Mexico's class divide, accusing "powerful interests" of trying to deny democratic freedoms to "us, the poor." The crowd, which spilled into side streets off the square and may have been the largest of the presidential campaign, chanted, "Presidente, Presidente!"

Blaring kazoos competed with the thump and boom of massive speakers blasting salsa rhythms and a Spanish-language homage to López Obrador set to the tune of the American pop song, "Love Is in the Air."

López Obrador had called his followers into the large downtown square, the Zocalo, the backdrop for generations of Mexican revolutionary fervor, to lay out his long-shot case for overturning Calderón's apparent presidential victory. But he got more than that: He got a moment of mass catharsis, an outrageously loud, communal venting.

"The Mexican people are awakening," said Martín García Trujillo, a farm laborer from the state of Michoacan who had left at midnight for the six-hour bus ride to the capital. "We know Andrés Manuel won. They just won't let it happen. We can't take this anymore."

López Obrador wants a vote-by-vote count, which would require opening sealed vote packets from more than 130,000 polling stations. Electoral commission officials have sided with Calderón's strategists, who argue that the law does not allow for the packets to be opened unless tally sheets attached to the packets appear to have been altered. López Obrador said that only 2,600 vote packets were opened Tuesday and Wednesday during a marathon official count, which shrank Calderón's lead from 400,000 votes after a preliminary vote to 230,000.

Thousands of López Obrador's supporters, many of whom had marched across the city for hours, chanted "Voto por voto, casilla por casilla" -- vote by vote, polling place by polling place -- as they streamed into the Zocalo on Saturday. Many entered the square waving the yellow flags of López Obrador's Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD.

Street vendors hawked T-shirts bearing the now-ubiquitous cartoon depiction of López Obrador's face next to the word "Smile." Speakers screamed, "Vote by vote!" as their images flickered across a huge screen suspended above the stage.

x "They stole this from us," said Concepción Myen, 68, a lifelong Mexico City resident who is unemployed. "This is the worst thing that can happen to Mexico."x

Myen personifies the López Obrador target voter. She is a senior citizen and said she had looked forward to the monthly pensions López Obrador promised. She is also a single mother, who struggled to raise her child alone, and said her life would have been much better if the aid program López Obrador had vowed to give single mothers had existed when she needed it.

The anger on display in the square grows from decades of perceived indignities and a sense of persecution by a succession of ruling parties. García Trujillo, the farm worker from Michoacan, recalled feeling the same anguish in 1988 when the PRD candidate, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, lost a presidential race that many international observers have said was stolen by the Ins utional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. He said he felt the same rage two years ago when outgoing President Vicente Fox's administration unsuccessfully attempted to impeach López Obrador, who was then the mayor of Mexico City.

Now García Trujillo's anger is directed at another ins utional power, Mexico's Federal Electoral Ins ute, which has a stellar international reputation but is accused by López Obrador of "manipulating" the results.

The electoral ins ute will cede control of the election to Mexico's special elections court, which has until Sept. 6 to decide whether to certify the results. Calderón has not waited for the elections court, and neither have world leaders. He accepted congratulatory calls on Friday from President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. But López Obrador cautioned against such formalities, saying, "Right now, there is no president-elect."

After López Obrador left the stage Saturday, the crowd lingered. Someone started singing the national anthem, and countless voices joined in its rallying cry: "Mexicans, to the shout of war!"

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

============

The way I read this is: he will not accept anything but victory. Pure
and simple. If he cant get it one way, he will get it another. Civil War!
So called rich against the poor. And he has already made a good start.

[xrayzebra]

Okay, insider NewsMax had this little article today. I wonder if boutons had anything
to do with this. Bottom line. Bush screwed up the Mexican election.

1. Charge: Bush Stole Mexican Election

Is it Florida redux?

It's not clear whether the Mexican election, now certifying Felipe Calderon of the ruling conservative National Action Party (PAN), will turn into a crisis like America witnessed in Florida after the 2000 election.

Already the two elections have one thing in common: left-wingers are claiming George Bush stole the election.

And yes, that includes the Mexican election.

Three days before Mexicans went to the polls, London-based journalist and blogger Greg Palast, an American, wrote, "George Bush’s operatives have plans to jigger with the upcoming elections."

Then on July 3, in an article led "Grand Theft Mexico" that appeared on guardian.co.uk, Palast wrote this: "As in Florida in 2000, and as in Ohio in 2004, the exit polls show the voters voted for the progressive candidate. The race is too close to call. But they will call it – after they steal it."

Palast says that the FBI, acting under the guise of counter-terrorism, had obtained Mexico's voter files through a contract with information broker ChoicePoint, the database company whose list Jeb Bush used in 2000 to "scrub" voters from voter rolls.

"The disenfranchisement of these voters cost Al Gore the presidency," declares Palast.

ChoicePoint of Alpharetta, Ga., says that it returned or destroyed its Mexican files when it learned that collecting voter information violated Mexican law.

Says Palast: "It's impossible to know whether the FBI destroyed its own copy…or whether these were then used to illegally assist the Calderon candidacy."

No matter, the word is out, Bush "Floridized" the Mexican election.

==================================

How can someone so dumb as the dimm-o-craps claim can do so much. Those
Bush's are everywhere, doing everything. None of it good.

[valluco]

[ShackO]

Bush was behind that volcano going off a while back to......

Appealing a corrupt election to a corrupt court makes lots of sense....

A little bribe "for the people" I guess is in order here.............