Mexican Election Fraud

[Mitsuru]

Mexican election result radicalises student protest movement | World news | guardian.co.uk

MEXICO CITY — Thousands marched through Mexico City's center on Sunday to protest what they called the "imposition" of the candidate of the old ruling party as the country's new president.

Protesters carried signs accusing presumed President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto of electoral fraud and Mexico television giant Televisa of being a "factory of lies." Opponents say Pena Nieto's party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, won the July 1 election through vote-buying and overspending, including paying major media outlets such as Televisa for favorable coverage.

"Mexico didn't vote for fraud. Mexico wants a country that is honest and democratic," said marcher Marlem Munoz, 26, who studies dentistry at Mexico's National Autonomous University. "What happened in the elections was a total mockery directed at the Mexican people."

The PRI has vehemently denied the charges and on Friday accused losing leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of trying to "disqualify the entire electoral process with lies." Televisa also has denied charges of being paid for positive coverage.

Mexico City authorities did not immediately release an official crowd estimate, but the march appeared to draw far fewer people than similar protests before the election with as many as 90,000 participants. A July 7 march, the first after election, drew 50,000. The events have attracted people from a new student movement, "I Am 132," and leftist groups supporting Lopez Obrador.

The lower participation raises questions of whether Mexico's university students have spawned a real movement in their demand for "authentic democracy" and an opening of Mexico's media, or if it's just part of the standard post-election protests in Mexico. In 2006, after Lopez Obrador narrowly lost to President Felipe Calderon, he marshaled hundreds of thousands of supporters to block Mexico City's main center for weeks.

Lopez Obrador said he will not mobilize people to the streets this time. His choking of central Mexico City in 2006 was highly unpopular with everyday residents.

I Am 132 has released a series of proposed events over the coming weeks, including Sunday's march, designed to overturn the vote results.

Other groups have said they will block the Dec. 1 inauguration of Pena Nieto.

Pena Nieto, 46, won the presidential election by 6.6 percentage points, according to the official count, bringing the PRI back to power after 12 years in opposition. The party had ruled Mexico for 71 consecutive years, with what critics say was the help of corruption, patronage and vote fraud.

The final vote count must be certified in September by the Federal Electoral Tribunal.

The current ruling conservative National Action Party, whose candidate came in third, joined Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party this week in demanding that electoral authorities investigate the purported use of pre-paid debit cards by Pena Nieto's campaign to disburse an estimated 108 million pesos ($8.2 million) in funds.

The PRI counters that they have presented no -evidence.

I asked my friend, Dany36, to locate (and possibly translate if necessary) any articles or important tidbits about the situation in Mexico. These are what she presented to me.

Spoiler

One study found that at least 28% of the population would have been exposed to coercion and vote buying, of which 70% of cases are associated with the PRI
Says that 71% of the reported cases are for the PRI, PRD 9%, PAN 17%.

(Source)​

"There was this huge scandal about the PRI giving out Soriana pre-paid cards to people to support the political party. Soriana is like the Mexican Wal-Mart."

The Soriana store chain reported Monday 'panic buying', fearing the cancellation of electronic cards of people who allegedly accepted them in return for voting in favor of coalition candidates Institutional Revolutionary Party and Green Party of Mexico (PRI-PVEM), published the newspaper La Jornada on Tuesday.

Reports that hundreds of people from the State of Mexico and some of Mexico City, formed long lines Monday at different stores […] which exchanged the card for groceries and appliances.

People who accepted electronic purses, which range from 100 pesos to 700, presumably had to go to the box and take a picture of the voted ballot to vote for the PRI for the card.

(Source)​

The protesters accused Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party of giving out bags of groceries, pre-paid gift cards and other goods to voters ahead of the July 1 national elections.

Accusations of vote-buying began surfacing in June, but sharpened in July when people rushed to grocery stores on the outskirts of Mexico City to redeem pre-paid gift cards worth about 100 pesos ($7.60 Cdn). Many said they got the cards from PRI supporters before the elections.

Lopez Obrador said millions of voters had received either pre-paid cards, cash, groceries, construction materials or appliances.

(Source)​

Some of the people lined up to use gift cards said they got them for supporting the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, whose candidate Enrique Pena Nieto won Sunday's presidential election, according to the preliminary official vote count. Some wore red T-shirts and baseball caps or carried tote bags with Pena Nieto's name printed in white.

"They gave us the cards in the name of the PRI and Rep. Hector Pedroza (a PRI congressional candidate), and they said they were counting on our vote," Maria Salazar said outside one store, as she carried plastic shopping bags packed with toilet paper, cooking oil, rice, saltine crackers and instant noodle soups.

"They told us they were worth 500 pesos ($37.50), but when we got to the check-out, they were only worth 100 rotten pesos ($7.50)," Salazar said.

Both she and her father said they had been told to turn in a photocopy of their voter ID card in order to get the gift cards.

(Source)​

And finally, below is a video (in Spanish) containing footage of a man telling police officers about the votes being bought out, only to be ignored (starting around 2:58). At 3:33, you can see PRI propaganda outside the voting booths, and a man instructing how to vote for the PRI.

Spoiler

[video=youtube;fx7uM7c-sAE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx7uM7c-sAE[/video]

I just find all of this abhorrent. I can understand the need for food, but I don't think it really justifies selling out your vote. According to my friend, they pretty much declared the PRI candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto (commonly referred to as EPN), as the president when only some 2% of the votes had been tallied. Unfortunately, this movement seems to be losing momentum.
I have plenty of related material, if anybody wants more.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Simply deplorable. I hope Nieto gets ousted as soon as possible and the PRI investigated by a responsible, neutral source.

 

[Vhazhiphor]

We all knew it was gonna go down this way. Anyone who says otherwise is either trying to fool themselves or very naive. There's always been fraud. The only difference is, this time they were quite brazen about it. You could say they got sloppy, but who knows? It might be some kind of message. Saying, "despite your best efforts, we can put illiterate cardboard cutouts like this asshole in charge, and there's nothing you can do to stop us". Yes, I believe the ritual of voting is nothing more than a pacifier given to the people so they feel better about themselves.

The best part about it, though? Those commercials that thank all of the voters for "strengthening democracy" and claiming that "Mexico has chosen". It must be a slap in the face to everyone that went and voted that day. Or, as I call it, went and drew straws on the fate of the country.

 

[dany the dot]

The best part about it, though? Those commercials that thank all of the voters for "strengthening democracy" and claiming that "Mexico has chosen". It must be a slap in the face to everyone that went and voted that day. Or, as I call it, went and drew straws on the fate of the country.

This this this. It makes me so angry whenever they show it on TV. >: ( That's what the PRI uses as an excuse whenever AMLO brings up evidence of fraud. "YOU ARE INSULTING THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE AND WHAT MEXICO STANDS FOR" aoijr;dzjroieaworpez; fools.

I really hope this movement will get strong again as December comes. I haven't been keeping up with this lately, so it might just be my imagination that it's fading. I went to my city's march at the beginning of August. My city's small (I frankly didn't even think there was going to be a march), and there were only like 150 there, but I was so happy to see people come together and wanting to be heard for what they believe is right. Again, nothing may come of this, but at least we can say that we didn't just stand there and do nothing while we were being robbed of a fair democracy...

 

[Phoenicks]

Mexico's three major political parties all engaged in election fraud. Mexico's campaign finance laws limit total spending on legitimate campaigning tools like commercials. The overflow money goes into illegitimate campaigning tools. You get more of the behavior you incent.

I deplore such conduct as much as the rest of you. I still think that it's a step up from the one-party political system of Mexico as recently as two decades ago. The reform-wing of a once-monopolistic party didn't win entirely fairly; they had to outrig the competition. I don't think that the other parties have much of a greater claim to legitimacy -- especially Obrador.