Mexico leftist leader calls rally after election upheld

AFP - Mexico's defeated leftist leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called for civil disobedience Friday after a court rejected his bid to overturn Enrique Pena Nieto's presidential election win.

Lopez Obrador refused to recognize the ruling of the electoral tribunal after it dismissed his bid to scrap the July 1 election over claims that Pena Nieto's party bought millions of votes and violated campaign spending rules.

"The elections were neither clean nor free nor genuine, therefore I will not recognize an illegitimate administration that emerged from votes that were bought and other grave violations of the constitution," he told reporters.

The former Mexico City mayor called on his followers to gather for a demonstration in the capital's historic main square, the Zocalo, on September 9, and to decide the way forward.

"Civil disobedience is an honorable duty when it is aimed against thieves who steal the hope and happiness of the people," he said. "I call on all supporters of democracy to gather at the Zocalo."

Lopez Obrador had led mass protests in Mexico City in 2006 after he lost that year's election to Felipe Calderon, of the conservative National Action Party, by a mere 0.06 percentage points.

But he was unable to change the outcome.

This time, the electoral court unanimously ruled that he had failed to prove that Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) bought five million votes, violated campaign spending limits and enjoyed biased news coverage.

Pena Nieto, who has rejected his opponent's allegations, won the election with 38.2 percent of the vote compared to 31.6 percent for Lopez Obrador, who lost by 3.3 million ballots.

The electoral court meets again later Friday to officially declare Pena Nieto the president-elect, clearing the way for him to take power on December 1 and return the PRI to the nation's highest office after a 12-year hiatus.

Pena Nieto will inherit from Calderon a brutal drug war that has left more than 50,000 people dead since 2006. Calderon did not run due to term limits.

The PRI governed Mexico with an authoritarian hand for 71 years until it lost the 2000 presidential election, but Pena Nieto has promised to break with his party's checkered past during his six-year term.

"It is time to begin a new phase of work in favor of Mexico," Pena Nieto wrote on Twitter late Thursday after the court ruling, offering dialogue "for the unity and greatness of Mexico."

Lopez Obrador's coalition claimed that the PRI distributed gift cards to voters in return for their votes. The left also charged that children were sent to polling stations to check how people voted.

But the seven judges of the electoral court ruled that the leftist coalition failed to prove its allegations.

"We had free and genuine elections," said Judge Salvador Olimpo Nava Gomar. "Mexico will have a president elected by the people, the citizen Enrique Pena Nieto."

Lopez Obrador's campaign manager Ricardo Monreal said the judges had acted like a "band of scoundrels."

Outside the court Thursday night, some 300 protesters shouted "Mexico without the PRI," brought down barriers and threw water bottles, corncobs and stones toward the court, as riot police watched passively.

The movement #Yosoy132, which organized protests against Pena Nieto during this year's campaign, has warned that it will lead a "funeral march to bury democracy."

Source: http://www.france24.com/en/20120831-mexico-leftist-leader-calls-rally-after-election-upheld

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