Mexico's Calderon says to focus more on poor

[Judi Lynn]

Thu 13 Jul 2006

Mexico's Calderon says to focus more on poor

MADRID (Reuters) - The conservative winner of Mexico's contested presidential election said he would pay more attention to the poor after the race showed wide support for promises to fight poverty, he said in a newspaper interview.

Ruling-party candidate Felipe Calderon told Thursday's El Pais newspaper that a big message from the July 2 vote was the need for "very ambitious" policies to help Mexico's poor.

Official results show leftist anti-poverty crusader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador lost to Calderon by less than a percentage point.

"Equal opportunity was always among the five fundamental goals in my platform. But now it's obvious I will give it much more emphasis for the simple reason that I understand the message from the ballot boxes," Calderon told El Pais.
(snip/...)

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=1021852006

[BrentWill4U]

1. Well, that really doesn't sound like the villain that most of you have..

made him out to be. HE is not a Mexican version of the GOP and he DID win the election. People should give him at least a chance to run the country.

[Torgo Johnson]

5. So you are going to take him at his word?

I sure would not. There is already proof coming out that this election was a fraud.

[BrentWill4U]

11. From Lopez..

Surprise, Surprise.....Hugo II is acting like Hugo I would act if he lost.

[Judi Lynn]

13. Hugo Chavez hasn't lost in Venezuela. Not by a long shot.

Do you feel qualified to claim you know how he'd behave it he lost?

.

[BrentWill4U]

16. No, he hasn't..

And I highly doubt that he will ever lose because of his control over that country. And if he does ever lose, believe me, the other side will have cheated. Which is what I said. He is acting like Hugo I would act if he had lost.

[Judi Lynn]

18. Would you give an example of his control over the country?

He has been elected by HUGE majorities previously. That sounds voluntary.

Most D.U.'ers are keenly aware that the opposition represents the small, European-descended elite, while the vast majority supports Chavez.

[BrentWill4U]

24. Okay....

First a picture of the a picture of the small amount of “Europeans” that oppose the man.




Next, A quick summery of some of the man's abuses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez

The recall vote was held on August 15, 2004. A record number of voters turned out to defeat the recall attempt with a 59% "no" vote.<6> European Union observers did not oversee the elections, saying too many restrictions were put on their participation by the Chávez administration.<7> Chávez would not allow open audits at the polling places to reconcile electronic voting and paper ballot tallies, an independent audit sample, a statistically reliable audit sample, a closed-door audit with CNE members present, inspection of the electronic voting machines immediately after the vote, or unlimited access to the electronic vote center.<8> The Carter Center "concluded the results were accurate." <9> However, a Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates (PSB) exit poll showed the opposite result, predicting that Chávez would lose by 20%, whereas the election results showed him to have won by 20%. Schoen commented, "I think it was a massive fraud". <10> US News and World Report offered an analysis of the polls, indicating "very good reason to believe that the (Penn Schoen) exit poll had the result right, and that Chávez's election officials — and Carter and the American media — got it wrong". <10> PSB used Súmate personnel and its results contradicted five other opposition exit polls. Publication or broadcast of exit polls was banned by government officials, but results of the PSB poll went out to media outlets and opposition offices several hours before polls closed.<11> The Schoen exit poll, and the fact that election machines were programmed by the government, was the basis of claims of election fraud.


Economists Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard University and Roberto Rigobón of MIT's Sloan School of Management performed a statistical analysis at Súmate's request,<12> analyzing how fraud could have occured during the referendum. They concluded that the vote samples audited by the government were not a random representation of all precincts, noting that the Chávez-backed CNE had "refused to use the random number generating program offered by the Carter Center for the August 18th audit and instead used its own program installed in its own computer and initialed with their own seed."

While human rights organization Amnesty International has catalogued human rights violations under Chávez,<20> scores of deaths and hundreds of injuries inflicted during both opposition and pro-Chávez demonstrations saw little official investigation. As of December 2004, Amnesty International has documented at least 14 deaths and at least 200 wounded during confrontations between anti-Chávez demonstrators and National Guard, police, and other security personnel in February and March 2004. Human Rights Watch criticized Chávez for stifling press criticism of government authorities and restrict the public’s ability to monitor government actions.<21> Opponents and human rights organizations maintain that his administration has a politically biased application of the criminal justice system: they assert that 90% of arrestees and prisoners are affiliated with the opposition.

Meanwhile, Chávez faces allegations of both censorship and ill treatment or torture of his opponents at the hands of the Chávez government's security forces. There are reports of slow and inadequate investigations into these abuses, which Amnesty International had attributed to the lack of police and judiciary impartiality. The organisation also has documented numerous reports of both police brutality and unlawful extrajudicial killings of criminal suspects, as well as intimidation of witnesses to the abuses. Calls by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the Chávez government to quell such threats and intimidation have also reportedly not been addressed, and Chávez himself has suggested that some international human rights defenders had intentions of fermenting turmoil and destabilizing the country. These allegations have been reported to result in endangering human rights defenders, including death threats.<20>

[Bacchus39]

25. don't worry too much

she is in love with Chavez. She has never been to Venezuela and doesn't speak Spanish. Yet she is an expert on all things Chavez and can tell you exactly the proportion and racial make up of all Venezuelans who oppose Chavez .

[Judi Lynn]

26. Oddest article I've seen at Wikipedia. At the top of the page is written

"A Wikipedian has expressed the opinion that this article is unbalanced."

Absolutely ridiculous. It has been (((((((spun))))))) like mad. It doesn't resemble anything other than opposition scrawls.

We get right-wing spinners here from time to time who try to do one-man wars on Hugo Chavez, but they simply don't win.



Pro-Chavez rally.

[BrentWill4U]

29. I am not trying to win or lose...

Nor am I a right wing spinner. However, to suggest that Hugo has not repressed to opposition, is ridicules. Just as it is ridicules to suggest that the people that oppose Hugo are "European". I will guarantee this, the man will NOT step down ,as the Constitution demands, once his 12 years are up.

[Judi Lynn]

34. Don't know how you could have missed it. The Venezuelan elite

is completely white (European descended). A lot has been written about it. Here's a small snip I just located:

"Venezuelan elites," one scholar has remarked, "judged people by their appearances. Accordingly, individuals with 'anxious hair' or 'hair like springs' lived in the shadow of their black slave ancestors. The elites considered respectable the whiter Venezuelans who had 'hair flat as rainwater, of an indefinite light brown color which is neither fair nor dark.'" Though some blacks were able to enter white society through marriage and miscegenation, "in the long run, such individuals provided the exceptions that proved the rule." Blacks who sought social acceptance had to adopt the clothing, education, and language of the white elite. In present day Venezuelan society, notes respected commentator Gregory Wilpert, "The correspondence between skin color and class membershipis quite stunning at times. To confirm this observation, all one has to do is compare middle to upper class neighborhoods, where predominantly lighter colored folks live, with the barrios, which are clearly predominantly inhabited by darker skinned Venezuelans." Meanwhile, journalist Greg Palast noted that rich whites had "command of the oil wealth, the best jobs, the English-language lessons, the imported clothes, the vacations in Miami, the plantations."
(snip)

http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff10142005.html

[Bacchus39]

36. "elite" not synonymous with Chavez opponents, nor any different from any

other latin american nation.

this statement can be said of any latin american nation with a racially diverse population:

"To confirm this observation, all one has to do is compare middle to upper class neighborhoods, where predominantly lighter colored folks live, with the barrios, which are clearly predominantly inhabited by darker skinned Venezuelans."

anybody who knows anything about latin america knows this.

[Judi Lynn]

43. Oh, yeah. There's a bit more I should have added from the article:

The White Elite Strikes Back

The white elite has not been amused by Chávez's recent moves. For them, the new president was an outsider. In contrast to previous leaders in Venezuela and throughout the region who identified with the outside European world, Chávez loudly proclaimed his indigenous and African roots. Chávez himself seems well aware of the race issue. According to the Venezuelan president, racial tensions have increased since his election. "There is racism here," Chávez remarked. "It used to be more hidden and now it is more open." Chávez's opponents, who argue that racism does not exist in the country, charged that the president exploits the race card for political gain. According to Fletcher, the Chávez opposition "has attacked him using racist language and imagery which would be totally unacceptable in public discourse in the USA." The Venezuelan elite has used racial slurs to taint Chávez, denouncing him as a black monkey. According to author Tariq Ali, "A puppet show to this effect with a monkey playing Chávez was even organized at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. But Colin Powell was not amused and the Ambassador was compelled to issue an apology." The attacks continued when Venezuelan media commentators referred to the Minister of Education, Aristobulo Isturiz, who is black, as "a monkey" and "an ape." Meanwhile, analysts have remarked upon the racial undertones of political conflict in Chávez's Venezuela. "Class and skin color differences," remarks Wilpert, "clearly correlate very highly at demonstrations, such that the darker skinned (and presumably lower class) support the Chávez government and the lighter skinned (and presumably middle and upper class) oppose the Chávez government."
(snip/)

http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff10142005.html



Cartoon by Pedro Zapata featured in the Jan 14, 2004 issue of the anti-Chavez newspaper El Nacional: "Racists! The afroamerican dollar is not black!".
Venezuela's opposition analysts have accused a delegation of African-American activists of receiving money from President Chavez to "make noises" in favor of his government.

[INDIA]

78. I think you are....

R-I-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S.:eyes:

[Bacchus39]

30. is that what you wrote? One person expresses an OPINION

and that makes the content of article false??

You cite VAnalysis, Venheadlines, Granma, Pakistan today, World Socialist.

At least with Wikepedia there is room for a disclaimer to take the article with a grain of salt.

[BrentWill4U]

33. Plus there is this crazy thing called "sources"

Which are cited. For each claim, you can examine the source itself, which are pretty believable. However, I am not going to go into that much detail. Don't have the time and it wouldn't matter. Her mind is made up.

[SensibleAmerican]

46. Howard Dean doesn't like Hugo Chavez

And I wouldn't call Dean a right-wing spinner.

[Judi Lynn]

48. Has he made any statements about him you want to share?

Whatever Howard Dean thinks of anyone is his business. If he had some important facts to impart, lay 'em on us.

I have done enough reading, researching, to arrive at my own conclusions with conviction, thanks!

I think Howard Dean is tremendous, but it's not likely I'm going to kick over my beliefs because you tell me Dean doesn't like Chavez. I doubt other DU'ers would, either.

[Ken Burch]

65. Which means nothing. Our Democratic "leaders" have accepted the Cold War

view of Latin American politics since 1945, and have always supported the rich against the poor in all elections south of the Mexican border.

THAT is what being "anticommunist" means-it means being pro-wealthy, pro-European elite and pro-imperialist.

[BrotherBuzz]

32. The opposition case was thrown out of International Criminal Court! LOL

Venezuelan Opposition Case Thrown Out of International Criminal Court

Friday, Feb 17, 2006 Print format

By: Alex Holland – Venezuelanalysis.com

Caracas, Venezuela, February 17, 2006—The International Criminal Court (ICC) rejected an appeal by Venezuelan opposition groups to prosecute the Venezuelan government for human rights violations. Chief Prosecutor for the ICC, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said the charges had a, “lack of precision as well as internal and external inconsistencies in the information.”

The ICC was set up by international treaty in 1998. Its purpose is to deal with the most serious human rights violations such as war crimes or crimes against humanity. Venezuela signed up to the ICC in June 2000.

Charges were first brought to the court in 2003 by Venezuelan lawyers representing Venezuelans associated with the opposition. The lawyers argued that they had suffered crimes against humanity at the hands of the Venezuelan government.

Most of the crimes they say they suffered were during the April 2002 coup, when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his government were briefly removed from power before being restored days later by the military and popular protests.

<more>

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1900

[Judi Lynn]

35. They always hope to catch people who don't know these things!

Thank you for your MORE RECENT information.

[unda cova brutha]

40. wow, we need to be able to get together a crowd like that

to drive the neo cons out of power.

[Bacchus39]

41. unfortunately, that was the line to vote

in the recall election.

[Bridget Burke]

37. Hey, PAN used the "Lopez Obrador is just like Hugo Chavez" argument...

Already. With the unspoken addendum that Chavez is a Flaming Radical Tyrant--rather than slightly to the Left.

Nobody believed that crap before. Nobody believes it now.

[skids]

6. Welcome to DU!

It's always very interesting to see where ya'll newbies stand. :hi:

(Doesn't Lopez Obrador also deserve a chance just as much?)

[BrentWill4U]

8. If he would have won the election..

Yes. He didn't.

[skids]

12. The winner hasn't been announced yet.

I think we now have arrived at the core of the issue.

[BrentWill4U]

14. Okay, if you want to play semantics, that is fine..

Lopez would deserve a chance if had a 250K vote lead with 100 percent of the polling stations reporting twice. I think he would ruin Mexico. He would take Mexico down the road it has gone down SOOO many times before and again destroy any progress the Mexican economy has made. His policy are very similar to the ones that lead to the last Peso devaluation in 1992. That being said, if he did have the lead, I would think that he would deserve a shot at running the country.

[EFerrari]

20. As of today, there is no legal winner. We have Bush propaganda

on one hand and on the other, evidence of fraud.

Not semantics unless you judge by US elections.

[skids]

22. The polling stations have only reported once.

What you think was the first count was just media numbers.

[Ken Burch]

66. so you buy the neoliberal bullshit instead. Which worked SO well in Chile

And which the Chilean people so loved that riot squads and torture were required to get them to accept it.

[w4rma]

7. What is ***says*** and what is does are two different things.

He hasn't proposed anything to help the poor, and he won't either.

[BrentWill4U]

10. He hasn't taken office yet..

And I doubt Lopez's plan of insane spending would have helped. That is the same type of policy that resulted in the Peso devaluation in 1992.

[w4rma]

15. Politicians make proposals during their campaigns. (nt)

[Judi Lynn]

19. It would be decent of you to provide an example of Lopez Obrador's

plan to dive into some "insane spending." This hasn't been well publicized.

Are you saying the great number of Mexican citizens who voted for him hope to run the country into the ground?

[SensibleAmerican]

47. We voted for a guy here who is insane with his spending

n/t

[Judi Lynn]

49. You probably won't find any DU'ers who voted for the idiot.

So, do you have any information you'd like to share concerning the other poster's claim Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador intends to do a whole lot of "insane spending?"

Still waiting to find out more.

[BrentWill4U]

52. Here are a few..

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/14859766.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

In the government-operated energy sector, nationwide cuts averaging 10 percent for the prices of gasoline, electricity and cooking fuel.

A 20 percent "instant raise" for the vast majority of workers through cash subsidies from the government. One ad breaks it down: At the low end of the scale, 1,500 pesos a month becomes 1,850, and at the high end, 9,000 pesos becomes 10,050 (about $890).

Monthly government grants of about $70 to the elderly, the disabled and single mothers, above and beyond current assistance.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=azYTbk0CT8IU&refer=latin_america

Lopez Obrador promises subsidies such as a 650 peso ($57) monthly pension for the elderly and lower energy prices. He plans to slash government workers' salaries and raise tax collection to pay for social programs and infrastructure projects, including the construction of three gasoline refineries.

In the same Monterrey square five days after Lopez Obrador's rally, Calderon, 43, likens his opponent's plans to a decree by former President Jose Lopez Portillo to raise the minimum wage by 20 percent. In 1982, Lopez Portillo's government took over Mexico's banks and defaulted on foreign debt.

That spending alone would be absolutely to and would wreak Mexico's finical policy.

[Judi Lynn]

56. What has wrecked Mexico's economy for the vast majority has been

its previous programs which wildly benefit the very few at the unbearable expense of the many.

I have a quick look I grabbed in a rush to add:

Lopez Obrador benefits immensely from popular approval of his tenure as mayor of Mexico City, where he fought successfully for the elderly and ran a more efficient administration than most of his predecessors. As a candidate he promises to stop privatization of oil and gas industries and to offer free medical care and food subsidies for citizens over 65. He has tapped a passionate popular solidarity with his modest lifestyle and outspoken preference for Mexico's poor, who are more than half the country's population. Speaking under the blazing sun rather than the shaded canopies usually reserved for the powerful, he is often paralyzed by the frenzied joy of the crowds he draws.

Mexicans close to the campaign said in interviews that Lopez Obrador would insist on basic revisions to NAFTA, the trade pact that has only widened inequality in Mexico since 1994. As the Los Angeles Times noted in 2002, "few would argue that NAFTA has been anything but devastating for Mexican farm families." In 2003, farmers stormed the doors of the Mexican legislature on horseback and threatened to seize customs checkpoints at the U.S.-Mexico border (L.A. Times, Jan. 1, 2003). With the situation worsening, Lopez Obrador would preserve subsidies for Mexican farmers that were set to expire under the NAFTA agreement.

He would make a priority of labor standards for immigrant workers, turning every Mexican consulate in the U.S. into a procuraduria, a kind of legal aid center. He also opposes the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border as an inhumane affront.

There would be major consequences for the American immigration debate with a new Mexican government that forcefully defended workers' rights and blamed NAFTA and U.S. multinationals for the conditions forcing Mexican workers to emigrate northward. Pro-immigrant and anti-corporate forces here would be fortified. A majority in the U.S. Congress might consider seriously reforming NAFTA for the first time. Right-wing conservatives would become more frenzied about the radical "threat" on the border.

"Neo-liberalism is a failure for us," said one of the Mexico City sources. "It is destroying our strategic national industries and resources: energy, phones, even privatizing health and education, the whole reform model achieved by the Lazaro Cardenas government since the 1930s."

Lopez Obrador has survived the intense fear-and-loathing campaign generated by the Mexican businesses and right-wingers who charge that he would become Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro rolled into one populist nightmare. Fear is their brand, because their alternative is the widely unpopular gospel of free trade and free markets.
(snip/...)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10494

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Whatever his plans, there will NEVER be an excuse for Americans to stick their red, swollen, bulbous Republican Duke Cunningham-like noses into the internal affairs of Mexico, and that includes the deadly results of previous trade agreements like CAFTA and NAFTA and whatever else they've forced upon them.

The wealthy politicians make the agreements which are paid for by the lives and suffering of the vast numbers of poor people in Mexico. It's time this process was modified. Having a man in the Presidency in Mexico who actually considers the poor as human beings is a good place to start.

It's comical now that Calderon believes he may be looking at some very angry crowds of poor people he suddenly opines he might like to include a few paltry improvements for them.

Right-wingers are going to learn SOMEDAY they actually can't steal the whole world and get the victems to go along with it. Sooner or later the whole thing will come apart.

[BrentWill4U]

73. You are way off..

First, WE don't control Fox nor are we going to control this guy. Do you think Bush REALLY likes the fact that fox is making the comments he is making about immigration and other issues to the American Press? Do you think that helps him politically. Next, Bill Clinton was right. Free Trade does help the economies of everyone who partakes in it. We proved this in 1776, when we set up a free trade zone between the states. From that, we gained one of the largest and fasted growing economies in the world. Next, the only end result that Lopez will result in is that instead of having a small middle class and upper class in Mexico, EVERYONE will be poor. You have to have steady economic growth and RESPONSIABLE social spending to get people out of poverty. That is what the DNC believes. In MANY WAYS the PAN and the DNC are VERY similar

[Judi Lynn]

76. Have you never heard of all the Mexican farmers and agricultural

workers who have lost farms, and jobs in Mexico due to the fact the US floods the country with US taxpayer-subsidized corn, beans, cotton, and sugar? Families living in homes passed down to them over generations have been unable to raise and sell their produce as cheaply as the crap dumped into their market and have gone bankrupt, turning many out without any source of income.

I'm surprised you have avoided learning about this.

U.S. Imports Bury Family Farms
TIM WEINER / New York Times 26feb02
MANZANILLO, Mexico -- For many generations, corn has been the sacred center of civilization in Mexico, the place where the grain was first cultivated some 5,000 years ago.

Gods and goddesses of corn filled the dreams and visions of the great civilizations that rose and fell here before the Spaniards came five centuries ago. Today the corn tortilla is consumed at almost every meal. Among the poor, sometimes it is the entire meal.

But the modern world is closing in on the little patch of maize, known as the milpa, that has sustained millions of Mexicans through the centuries. The powerful force of American agribusiness, unleashed in Mexico by the North American Free Trade Agreement, may doom the growing of corn as a way of life for family farmers here, agronomists and economists say.

Lorenzo Rebollo, a 53-year-old dirt farmer, works two and a half acres of corn and beans here on the slopes of the eastern state of Michoacán, in Mexico's central highlands, where corn was first grown as a food crop, archaeologists say. Mr. Rebollo is one of about 3 million Mexicans who farm corn and support roughly 15 million family members.

His grown sons have left for the United States to make a living, and Mr. Rebollo says he may be the last man to farm this patch of earth. It is the same story all over Mexico: thousands of farmers pulling up stakes every year, heading for Mexico City or the United States. Some grew coffee or cut sugar cane. But most grew corn.

Roughly a quarter of the corn in Mexico is now imported from the United States. Men like Mr. Rebollo cannot compete against the mechanized, subsidized giants of American agriculture.

"Corn growing has basically collapsed in Mexico," Carlos Heredia Zubieta, an economist and a member of Mexico's Congress, said in a recent speech to an American audience. "The flood of imports of basic grains has ravaged the countryside, so the corn growers are here instead of working in the fields."
(snip/...)

http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/Corn-Subsidized-Imports26feb02.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~snip~
More than a million Mexican farmers lost their land since the passage of
NAFTA and the subsequent dumping of surplus US corn, cotton, wheat and other
crops (according to Via Campesina and the Mexican farmers¹ organizing
committee). The dumping of subsidized corn and cotton into the Mexican
markets drove prices below the cost of production. Small farmers could not
compete and were driven out of business and off the land.
(snip/...)

http://www.organicconsumers.org/clothes/willallen011504.cfm

[BrentWill4U]

82. I am well aware that there are winner and losers in free trade..

However, that still doesn't mean that society as a whole doesn't benefit when countries produce and develop products that they have a competitive advantage to produce. Your point to a particular case, and while tragic, does not negate the fact that free trade is beneficial to everyone as a whole.

[Ken Burch]

84. the DNC or the DLC?

You sound like you actually mean the latter.

[BrentWill4U]

85. I actually mean the former

Take a look at the two platforms. PAN and the DNC.

[Ken Burch]

88. Do you mean the 2004 Democratic platform?

Actually, as far as I know, the DNC(Democratic National Committee) has little to do with drafting the party platform. Customarily, the nominee apparent(the person who goes into the convention with the nomination sewn up, since we haven't had a convention in which the nomination was in doubt since 1960, when JFK just barely got a first-ballot majority)pretty much dictates the platform.

Also, let me say at this time that, while you take a similar position to the infamous MrBenchley, but unlike him, you do so in a generally evenhanded and respectful tone, and I thank you for that.

[BrentWill4U]

92. Sort of...

The delegates that go to the DNC convention actually have the power to draw up the platform. Not that the guy that wins doesn't have a very, very,very, very strong say, but in the end, the platform is a product of the DNC and the delegates that Democratic voters elect.

[BrentWill4U]

91. Sort of...

The delegates that go to the DNC convention actually have the power to draw up the platform. Not that the guy that wins doesn't have a very, very,very, very strong say, but in the end, the platform is a product of the DNC and the delegates that Democratic voters elect.

[BrentWill4U]

53. I didn't..

And that is one of the reasons that Clinton was a GREAT President. He kept spending under control.

[Ken Burch]

68. The PAN alternative was the status quo program of insane austerity.

And what a roaring success "pro-business" policies have been for the working-class Afro-indigenous majority of Latin Americans.

[mavoix]

9. Well, that really doesn't sound like the villain ...

He's not a villain. He's just really a 'destapado', i.e. chosen in advance by the outgoing prez. AND he's the choice of our esteemed leader. Lopez Obrador is really the one who cares about the poor (or so he seems), and the Mexican poor people--workers and campesinos alike--who constitute at least 80 percent (probably more) of the population voted for him. Greg Palast is still there in Mexican trying to document irregularities. Not that it will do much good, with Bush already acting like Calderon is the official president. Actually, the Electoral Commission in Mexico has until September to make a final decision.

[mom cat]

17. Welcome to DU!

:hi:
Here is hoping for a recount!

[mavoix]

44. Welcome from mom cat

Thanks for the welcome! I really don't think that the Mexican voters will let Lopez Obrador lose. I just hope that, during any protests, there won't be a repeat of the Tlatelolco massacre in the '60s, when students from the Autonomous University were protesting something (I think it was the low wages of university janitorial employees). If they do accomplish a peaceful recount, it will add two more black marks to Bush's record: an honest recount, and Lopez Obrador winning over Bush's choice.

[mom cat]

64. It might even teach us Yankees a thing or two!

[unda cova brutha]

38. he didn't win the election.

he stole it with the help of bushco and his croonies who stole the election in 2000 and 2004.

[beltanefauve]

58. Are you refering to

COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM ? :rofl:

[KingFlorez]

74. Yeah right

Sounds like to me he didn't win all that honestly. He's really no better than neocons here.

[agincourt]

89. Time will tell if he wins the recount,

I am not NEARLY so optimistic on Calderon. Time will tell, if he is decent it will be because he fears fire in the streets.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Mexico dips as thousands gather for election protest

Mexico dips as thousands gather for election protest

live quotes By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch
Last Update: 2:10 PM ET Jul 13, 2006


NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - Mexican stocks dropped Thursday, caught up in the broader market downturn sparked by Middle Eastern tensions, with traders also eyeing the thousands of people who had started gathering in Mexico City to support the legal bid of the leftist presidential candidate for a vote-by-vote recount of the razor-thin July 2 election.
(snip)

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?dist=newsfinder&siteid=google&guid=%7B018C9588-B7A5-488F-B3A1-F9CE25B6B62B%7D&keyword=

[Larkspur]

3. I heard that there will be very large pro-Obrador demonstrations in Mexico

City this weekend. This "focus" of Calderon may be a pre-emptive strike against those demonstrations, but I think it will fail.

[EFerrari]

21. There already have been and they are ongoing.

The talking point of the day: Don't put the poor through democracy.

lol

[Judi Lynn]

4. Mexico's Tiger Stirs

posted July 13, 2006 (July 31, 2006 issue)
Mexico's Tiger Stirs


Porfirio Díaz, Mexico's dictator from 1876 to 1910, always feared a popular revolution. "We must not awaken the tiger," Díaz famously declared. The revolution that erupted in 1910 cost more than a million lives. Mexican intellectuals have recently warned that the tiger is stirring once again in the wake of the country's contested July 2 presidential election, the initial results of which granted a razor-thin victory to Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party (PAN).

Calderón's so-called victory is shrouded in suspicion. On July 3 the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) informed the world that with nearly all the votes counted in its preliminary result, Calderón was slightly ahead of Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). AMLO, as López Obrador is known, immediately insisted that the autonomous IFE (much praised by US media for its supposed professionalism in administering the election) had neglected to count 3 million votes. The institute acknowledged the error and ordered that those ballots be tallied. Two days later IFE announced that Calderón had won by 240,000 votes. Mexico is now enduring its own version of the Florida election debacle of 2000, and it amounts to a constitutional and political crisis.

Was the process fair? AMLO insists that "irregularities" took place at 50,000 polling stations (of 130,000). The newspaper La Jornada featured on its cover a crumpled ballot rescued from a garbage bin in a working-class AMLO stronghold in Mexico City. On July 9 the PRD officially requested a complete recount at disputed polling stations, and it has launched a two-pronged strategy to achieve it. On the legal front PRD lawyers have delivered hundreds of pages of documentation concerning electoral chicanery to a special electoral tribunal; that tribunal, which has demonstrated independence in the past, has the power to order a partial or full recount, and it must certify the winner by September 6. On the political front the left has unleashed its forces on the streets. On July 8 several hundred thousand AMLO supporters converged on Mexico City's central square for a raucous demonstration, and the PRD called another rally for July 16. Some US newspapers have implied that AMLO is a demagogue for sanctioning such tactics, but these critics fail to understand that he is under crushing pressure from his own rank and file. "If Andrés Manuel does not assume leadership," one PRD leader told the Financial Times, "there will be chaos. The people are very angry."
(snip/...)

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060731/editors

[bullimiami]

23. this article is some slanted ass bullshit reminds me of bush v gore

reuters has declared the winner and claimed there have been 3 counts to prove it.
new should be based on facts. these are not.

calderons words can be taken much as his good friend george bushs words. "designed to catapult the propaganda"

[Megahurtz]

27. Oh How Cute!

:eyes: A "Conservative" wins the Mexican election!:puke:

No one can tell me that the majority of Mexico (the poor)
voted a conservative into office!
What utter and pure BULLSHIT!:puke:

I bet the G.O.P. gave them "lessons in Diebold".
After all, they would never want to lose their cheap labor!:puke:

Hey!
Keep Mexico poor!
It's compassionate conservatism!:patriot::sarcasm:

Today's "Conservatives" = Liars, swindlers, Con-Artists and thieves!:argh:

[Judi Lynn]

28. You've cut right throught the gibberish! Thank you.

You've written one FINE post! Couldn't be better.

[Megahurtz]

31. Thanks. It's SO obvious! n/t

[go west young man]

59. I'll have to say ditto to that! I wish more people around here would

just call bullshit when they see it.

[cosmicdot]

42. "It's compassionate conservatism!"

matches my initial reaction, too ...

propaganda BS a la Bu$h**-the-media-creation-conArtist

pandering in hopes to get people to 'move on'

bait and switch rhetoric

What's next, promising to put food on the family; and, asking, is our children learning???

[Judi Lynn]

39. Adding a small but informtive article on the ORIGINAL subject:

Protesters head for Mexico City
Originally published July 13, 2006

MONTERREY, Mexico // Supporters of leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador headed to Mexico City yesterday, leaving mountain towns and sprawling industrial cities to demand a ballot-by-ballot recount. Protesters gathered outside the country's 300 electoral districts before heading to the capital, where a mass rally is planned for Sunday to denounce official results showing conservative Felipe Calderon as the apparent winner of the July 2 election. Lopez Obrador has filed legal appeals challenging Calderon's nearly 244,000-vote advantage.
(snip/)

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.world13jul13,0,4088781.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's clear Calderon hopes to attract the sympathies of some of the Lopez Obrador supporters with his last ditch effort to claim, "me, too." He never spoke this way during the campaign, as you know.

Why bring it up now, when half the country is really steamed, and rightfully so? He's trying to help his image.

[Judi Lynn]

45. Mexico's ruling party responds to vote challenge

Mexico's ruling party responds to vote challenge

Thursday, July 13, 2006; Posted: 3:23 p.m. EDT (19:23 GMT)

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- Mexico's ruling party on Thursday was finishing written responses designed to knock down a barrage of appeals filed by the leftist Democratic Revolution Party in the country's disputed presidential race.

The written responses by the National Action Party, or PAN, were the latest in a heated legal battle over who will replace President Vicente Fox when he steps down December 1. Mexican law limits presidents to one, six-year term.

"Today we will present the last, long briefs that respond completely to every challenge," National Action attorney Cesar Nava told The Associated Press on Thursday.

On Monday, the PAN filed its own challenges at 500 polling places in 129 districts in Tabasco, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Veracruz and Mexico states as well as Mexico City -- all bastions of support for leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The PAN isn't alleging fraud, but said votes there should be annulled because of human error, such as polling stations set up in improper locations or poll workers who failed to show up on Election Day and were replaced by officials from Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.
(snip/...)

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/07/13/mexico.election.ap/

[Judi Lynn]

50. Calderón's win in rural region fuels charges of election fraud

Calderón's win in rural region fuels charges of election fraud
By Hector Tobar, Los Angeles Times | July 13, 2006

VALLE DE SANTIAGO, Mexico -- Before last week, this rural region in the Mexican heartland state of Guanajuato was famous for producing some of the biggest vegetables Mexico has ever seen: a 90-pound cabbage and onions as big as volleyballs.

Now Valle de Santiago has produced another bountiful harvest, this one for conservative presidential candidate Felipe Calderón. The overwhelming margins of victory for Calderón in towns across Guanajuato -- a victory of almost 3-1 here, for example -- were essential to his narrow nationwide triumph.

Backers of his rival, leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, call those margins a harvest of fraud. They produce precinct tally sheets with numerous inconsistencies to back up their claims. The inconsistencies are enough to justify reopening the ballot boxes and recounting the votes, they say.

Calderón's supporters argue the documents show nothing more nefarious than simple human error. They say their candidate won big simply because he and his National Action Party, or PAN, are more popular here, in the home state of President Vicente Fox, than anywhere else .

A review of precinct tally sheets in Valle de Santiago found ample proof of sloppiness in the vote counting, including many mathematical and typographical errors, but no overt evidence of fraud.
(snip/...)

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/07/13/calderns_win_in_rural_region_fuels_charges_of_election_fraud/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Simple typographical errors and mathematical errors? Oh, RIGHT! That explains it, doesn't it?

[Clarkie1]

51. Good idea. nt

[Acadia Blue]

54. ha ha lieing sack of shit who is owned by the corporations and the rich.

He trying to keep them from revolting as they should have years ago. Get scared Lieing sack of shit Calderon.

[BrentWill4U]

55. You mean the lieing sack of shit..

That wants to move towards universal Health Care, Increase funding for Day Cares, and increase funding for education?

[Ken Burch]

70. Calderon doesn't WANT to do any of that...

If he's said he'll do it(and since he's a Latin American right winger we can assume he was lying)it was because Obrador's strength in the polls FORCED him to say it.

[Judi Lynn]

57. You're right. He's scared to death. They have him on the run, since

they have smoked his @$$ out, apparently. He is terrified they are going to rebel against his elitist-pandering, _Bush-supported plans. Why else did he pick today to start yammering about his great plans to help "the little man," as the poor are preparing to march into Mexico City to protest?

Sheesh.

No pride at all. What's more, he's too crooked to be honest with them. If he had great plans for radical change for the country, they would have heard all about it during his campaign.

[BrentWill4U]

60. Yeah...

That is what this guy said he would do DURING the Campaign. Look it up. The PAN is NOT THE GOP!!!!

[Judi Lynn]

62. Of course it's hard to pay attention, but the reference is to the original

post:

"Equal opportunity was always among the five fundamental goals in my platform. But now it's obvious I will give it much more emphasis for the simple reason that I understand the message from the ballot boxes," Calderon told El Pais.
(snip/...)

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=1021852006

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How many ways can that be interpreted?

[Ken Burch]

69. No, they're actually to the RIGHT of the GOP

And they have the Mexican army to support them by slaughtering poor people and workers into remembering their place.

But that's better than overspending on social programs, right?

[BrentWill4U]

61. Yeah...

That is what this guy said he would do DURING the Campaign. Look it up. The PAN is NOT THE GOP!!!!

[Binka]

63. Wow You Liked That RW Talking Point So Much You Posted It Twice

Wow! You sure have your panties in a FRIST over this situation.:silly:

[VegasWolf]

67. HaHaHa!!! Good one.

:)

:toast:

[Rex]

71. They have spent a lot of time trying to pimp the Conservative 'winner'.

Then again, everyone here who reads this thread knows what's really going on.

[skids]

72. What I want to know...

...is if we're supposed to let the media call the winner, can we then get a redo on the Al Gore thing?

[Rex]

75. I wish!

I wonder if the Mexican recount included the millions of ballots found in the trash? I don't think we will ever have fair elections.

[skids]

79. FWIW there has not been a recount.

Only a first count. JFYI.

[BrentWill4U]

77. Whats really going on is..

Someone with views very similar to the views of the mainstream DNC won in Mexico. Yet, we are supposed to Demonize him. I don't get it.

[Ken Burch]

83. The views of most Democrats are nowhere near as right wing as Calderon

It's only the Beltway types that think what corporations want should come before human needs.

[BrentWill4U]

86. If that is the case..

You continue to vote for a party that doesn't represent your values. Most Mainstream Democrats understand that corporations, while they must be regulated to stop abuses, do give people jobs they need and products they want.

[Ken Burch]

87. I vote for a party in which there is a small space

to fight for my values and one in which many people share my values. I would say that most Dems don't think that what business wants matters more than everything else. And also, I sincerely believe that most Dems, unlike the Beltway elitists, don't think the US should be trying to pressure every other country to adopt our economic model. Most, for instance, clearly don't want the party to support the Bush objective of forcing Bolivia and Venezuela to lower themselves to "market values", IMHO.

[BrentWill4U]

90. The beltway elite..

Has been every Democratic President that I can remember. Bill Clinton, who I consider to be a GREAT president, did more to open markets and encourages countries to practice open markets and liberal economic theory then any President in my life time, including the current one.

[Judi Lynn]

80. MEXICO - Dramatic Vote Count Lacks Credibility

MEXICO - Dramatic Vote Count Lacks Credibility
(by Laura Carlsen, IRC)
Wednesday 12 July 2006.

~snip~
Although Sunday’s voting was peaceful and turnout high, reporters in the streets and letters to the press testify to the thousands of voters who waited in line for hours, only to be told that their polling place had run out of ballots. Thousands more were informed that their names had disappeared from the rolls. These people now complain that they were frustrated in the exercise of their civic duty by a system they suspect of bias. They are joined by millions more who are convinced that the whole process-from the campaigns to the count-was riddled with inequities.

Many factors feed into this lack of public confidence. The first is the blatant partisan involvement of the president and federal government. President Fox consistently violated a Mexican law that calls for the neutrality of government officials in carrying out their public duties, despite weak admonitions from the elections authorities.

The campaigns were not what Mexico’s citizenry deserved. Calderón’s campaign slogan “López Obrador is a danger to México” was low-level politicking and worked not to inform voters but to create a climate of fear until it was finally declared illegal by elections authorities. The veiled threats of the Business Council and dire warnings of economic collapse from Calderón were neither grounded in fact nor ethical as a campaign tactic. When fear-of loss of jobs, houses, or national stability-trumps reasoned choice, it’s the nation as a whole that has lost the elections.

The PAN also made full use of the tactics of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Part of the political culture entails delivering votes to the highest bidder-the party that brings in building materials, a new basketball court, or cash payments. It is a civic vice that the Mexican political system as a whole has not yet overcome. After years of one-party rule, many citizens still view their vote as a commodity to be bartered and not a principled statement to chart a course for the nation. On the local level where vote-buying is most prominent, none of the major parties has done much to change this view. The flip side of vote-buying is vote coercion, or threatening to cut off goods or services for voting the wrong way.
(snip/...)

http://www.alterinfos.org/article.php3?id_article=453

[Judi Lynn]

81. Alejandro Chafuen: Big issues for new Mexican president

Alejandro Chafuen: Big issues for new Mexican president

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, July 14, 2006

~snip~
The recent leftward shift of several Latin American countries, with their populist leaders' increasingly anti-U.S. tone, puts pressure on Mexico to go with the flow. This would not be good news. From Nestor Kirchner, in Argentina, to Evo Morales, in Bolivia, and Hugo Chavez, in Venezuela, many of the region's leaders have been moving away from representative democracy, using heavy-handed methods to control the courts, force businesses and labor groups to march in lockstep, and harass the opposition. The short-term gains these leaders realize will hinder their countries' long-term prospects. Representing Mexico's more conservative party, Calderon should be able to resist this.

Though many Americans are frustrated by the slow pace of reform in Mexico, things have been improving. President Fox bequeaths President-elect Calderon a slightly freer economy, a more transparent government, less concentrated political power, and a freer press. Since Ernesto Zedillo's presidency (1994-2000), Mexican leaders have been changing the rules of the political game, all for the better.

But seven decades of single-party rule cannot be undone overnight. As noted by Luis Rubio, director of the Mexican think tank Research Center for Development, Mexico's last two presidents, Fox and Zedillo, "were not savvy politicians and did not care about politics." That weakened their chances to be more effective.

What the president-elect lacks in charisma he can more than compensate for with his highly tuned political skills and sophisticated understanding of economics, energy, and government.
(snip/...)

i]Alejandro Chafuen is president of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, a free-market think tank (2000 North 14th St., Suite 550, Arlington, Va. 22201; www.atlasusa.org).

~ ~ ~ ~

http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/projo_20060714_14mex.1252f73.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There you have it, a truly fair and balanced article on Calderon.