Mexico’s top electoral agency says it will destroy ballots cast in the 2006 election and this year’s vote. The Federal Electoral Institute says its general board voted unanimously Wednesday to destroy all ballots in the presidential contests and other races. It says the ballots will be destroyed before the end of the year.
At least 32,000 protesters marched through Mexico City on Sunday to protest the “imposition” of the new president. They accuse president-elect Enrique Pena Nieto, a member of the old ruling party, of electoral fraud. Protesters have dubbed the country’s TV giant Televisa a “factory of lies.” Demonstrators marching through to capital claimed that Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won the election by vote-buying and an aggressive PR campaign through major media outlets such as Televisa, which they claim was well paid for positive coverage of Nieto’s presidential campaign. Enrique Pena Nieto, 46, won the election with 38.2 per cent of the vote against 31.6 per cent for the leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Nieto’s victory brought the Institutional Revolutionary Party back to power after being in the opposition for 12 years. The ruling President Felipe Calderon of the conservative National Action Party came in third. Opponents of the victorious candidate demanded urgent domestic reforms.
Mexican leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday he will mount court challenges against the results of the July 1 election, claiming vote-buying and campaign overspending by the winner of official vote counts, Enrique Pena Nieto. The announcement comes amid rising calls to investigate what appears to have been the distribution of thousands of pre-paid gift cards to voters before the election, and allegations by Lopez Obrador’s supporters that some state government officials passed funds to Pena Nieto’s campaign effort. Lopez Obrador finished about 6.6 percentage points behind Pena Nieto of the old guard Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
Mexico’s electoral commission has declared centrist candidate Enrique Pena Nieto the winner of the presidential election. The announcement comes after a recount of more than half the ballots. Enrique Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has decisively won Mexico’s presidential election, after allegations of vote buying forced a recount of more than half the ballots. The Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) reported on Friday that Nieto had won 38.21 percent of the vote, while leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) came in second with 31.59 percent. Josefina Vazquez Mota of outgoing President Felipe Calderon’s conservative National Action Party (PAN) garnered 25.41 percent of the vote.
Mexican opposition candidate Enrique Pena Nieto maintained his lead in a final count from Sunday’s presidential election, confirming initial results published the night of the vote. With 92 percent of polling stations counted by Thursday morning, Pena Nieto held 38.4 percent of the vote, seven points ahead of the leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, setting up a return to power by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) expected to conclude the final vote count on Thursday and certify the results on Sunday, when an official count of results from the congressional elections is due. Preliminary results showed Pena Nieto claimed victory Sunday with some 38 percent of the vote, about 6.5 points clear of Lopez Obrador. Trailing in third was Josefina Vazquez Mota of the ruling conservative National Action Party (PAN).
A recount on Thursday showed Mexico’s Enrique Pena Nieto as the clear winner of Sunday’s presidential election, but the runner-up still refused to concede, alleging Pena Nieto’s party bought millions of votes. The results set up a return to power for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which governed Mexico from 1929 to 2000, when it was frequently accused of vote-rigging. With 99 percent of polling stations counted or recounted, Pena Nieto held 38.2 percent of the vote, 6.7 points ahead of leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, expected to conclude the final recount later on Thursday and certify the results on Sunday, when an official count of the congressional elections was also due.
With presidential and local elections slightly more than two weeks away, violence — some of it political, some of it part of a raging drug war — is surging in Mexico, with candidates killed, journalists snatched and major arrests threatening to touch off a wave of reprisals. And in a sign of the profound corruption that a new president will face, a video released this week shows police officers marching men from a hotel in the middle of the night. The men turned up dead the next day, and the police are suspected of acting on orders from drug gangs.
Juan Castro is voting for two presidents this year: one for the United States and another for Mexico. “I’m not sure who I’m going to vote for,” said the San Jose resident. “To tell you the truth, the three main candidates who are running are worthless, more of the same.” He’s talking about the Mexican election. The three-month campaign for Mexico’s July 1 presidential and congressional election officially began Friday. “They’re all career politicians. As far as parties, they’re all the same.” Still, four decades after he moved to the United States, the municipal accountant at Sunnyvale City Hall is one of more than 12,000 Mexican-Americans in California who have registered to vote in the election, a fraction of the nearly 4 million eligible.
Texas economists are confident that the financial upheavals long associated with Mexican elections are a thing of the past. Still, they are closely watching what this summer’s presidential contest means for the peso and, in turn, Texas’ symbiotic business ties to Mexico. Texas politicians are paying close attention, too — to whether the trade, security and energy policies of President Felipe Calderón’s successor will affect illegal immigration or the state’s robust trade relationship with Mexico.
Three Texas customs districts, Laredo, El Paso and Houston, rank among Mexico’s top four trading partners. Collectively, they accounted for roughly $235 billion in trade between Texas and Mexico from January to September 2011, according to United States Census data analyzed by WorldCity, which tracks global trade patterns. The figures show an increase over 2010 despite the American recession and unprecedented violence in Mexico because of warring drug cartels.
The political party that ruled Mexico for more than 70 years and aspires to recapture the presidency in 2012 appeared headed for lopsided wins Sunday in key state elections that reflected public anger with the government of President Felipe Calderon.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, hoped victories would help cement its steady march back to the presidential palace, and initial results were encouraging to the party’s leaders. The PRI was toppled from the nation’s top office in 2000.
With 15 million people, the state of Mexico is the country’s most populous. Exit polls quoted by Mexican television gave a substantial win there to PRI candidate Eruviel Avila, as was widely expected. He had more than double the votes of his nearest rival, according to these polls. Official results were trickling in through the night and initially confirmed the trends reported by the exit polls.