The Clock Ticks in Mexico

While many are making the case that Israeli political handling of the war in Lebanon is an unmitigated disaster, with Hezbollah strengthened locally and also specifically with Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Iraq, another potential instability has been simmering all summer long to our immediate south.

The Mexican Presidential election last July still has no declared winner as the Federal Electoral Institute is reviewing claims of election fraud in the close race. The Tribunal must conclude their investigation by August 31st and declare the winner by September 6th. Leftist supporters of trailing candidate López Obrador are claiming massive fraud and planning widespread protests if events don’t go their way.

Massive and Systematic Election Fraud: “Taqueo and Saqueo” These preliminary recounts demonstrate mainly two kinds of fraud: “taqueo,” or the stuffing of ballot boxes with false votes as if putting extra beans inside a taco, and “saqueo,” or “looting,” that is, the disappearance of legitimate ballots cast.

Mexican law allows for investigation of any challenged votes, but the investigative tribunal is refusing Obrador’s grandstanding attempt to force a recount of every single vote in the country. Since the point of grandstanding is to impress an audience, the popular socialist is doing his best to make sure his audience comes out to applaud his performance.

Lopez Obrador strikes out: Angered by the Federal Electoral Tribunal's unanimously rejection of his calls for a full recount of some 41 million ballots, defeated presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has urged his supporters to step up the protests, clogging up downtown Mexico City, occupying toll booths on federal highways and blocking access to several major banks and the Finance Ministry.

Admittedly, poor Catholics without military weapons are a different scale of threat from Jihadist Muslims with Iranian munitions, but assembling and agitating large crowds is fraught with unpredictable dangers. Freelance journalist Kenneth Emmond writes that Obrador is going to be a long term fixture in Mexican politics, and the best case scenario may be for him to remain the outsider activist.

Lopez Obrador: a fixture on Mexico's political scene: Indeed, a political victory for Felipe Calderón and a loss for López Obrador might be the best possible formula for making a better Mexico — a kind of political division of labor. In this scenario, President Calderón would be in charge of political stability — negotiating among the parties, putting forward proposed legislation and, one hopes, convincing the majority of legislators to support the reforms, budgets, and sundry other laws that constitute the nation's business.

Meanwhile, López Obrador, still leader of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) but on the outer fringe of the formal political process, would focus on creating real change, using his gifts as self-appointed legislative watchdog and master of the maxi-demonstration. He'd keep a watchful eye on the key issues in front of the people from the point of view of social justice — and make sure that President Calderón keeps his hands clean!

The worst case scenario is Russian weapons via Venezuela ending up in the hands of “activist” protesters, not satisfied with simply hanging around outside banks and Federal buildings.