MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Massive “civil resistance” march supports Lopez Obrador

Hundreds of thousands convened Sunday to Mexico City's main square in support of presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and his demand for a vote by vote recount of ballots cast in July 2 election.

Addressing the 700.000 crowd Lopez Obrador bowed to pursue "peaceful resistance" until his demand for the vote by vote recount is answered in possibly the country's tightest election ever.

"I am absolutely certain that, if the recount is performed, it will show that we have won" said Lopez Obrador, whom the Mexican Federal Election Institute, IFE, on July 6 said had received 0.58% fewer votes than ruling National Action Party's Felipe Calderon.

Supporters and party activists dressed mainly in yellow, the PRD (Democratic Revolution Party) colours, walked several kilometres with shouts of "vote by vote, ballot box by ballot box". Police officials in the city government, which is run by the PRD, said that as many as 900,000 people took part in the march, but other reports put the estimate in 500,000.

Lopez Obrador announced that a citizens committee would determine "civil resistance" measures which includes campaigns directed at the 300 district councils to "prevent ballots from being removed or added" to ballot boxes and a new massive rally to be held July 30.

"For the political, economic and financial stability of Mexico and to contribute to social peace and prevent irrational confrontations, the vote by vote, ballot box by ballot box recount is necessary" said Lopez Obrador who invited his rival Calderon to "accept the review of the tallies and the vote by vote recount".

According Lopez Obrador 60% of the roughly 130,500 voting tally sheets present "arithmetic errors", a circumstance that he claims certainly contributed to a faulty initial vote count.

"An estimated 1.5 million votes are not supported by electoral ballots. This is not reflected in the tallies, actually they show greater or fewer numbers of votes than those deposited in the ballot boxes".

Lopez Obrador insisted that when election authorities allowed some ballot boxes to be opened for a random check of tally sheets, there were cases in which Calderon "fraudulently" had received 100 or 200 votes more than existed in the ballot box, while Lopez Obrador had received up to 100 fewer votes than were on hand in his name.

Lopez Obrador said that the IFE had opened "illegally" the vote packets from the ballot boxes and had "squared the (voting) figures" to give the win to Calderon. IFE has until August 31 to rule on the challenges and must declare a definitive winner before September 6.

In an official release Sunday IFE announced that district councils agreed to open the envelopes containing ballots but only from 2,870 ballot boxes (out of a total 130,477) for a vote by vote recount to "dispel doubts from parties and coalitions' representatives", that contested the election.

IFE recalled that envelopes legally can only be opened if they showed signs of having been altered or if tally sheets in the possession of election authorities and each political party representative did not agree, were missing or showed modifications.

However Mexican analysts fear that Lopez Obrador's movement could become more radicalized as the matter drags on.

Lopez Obrador called the march the second "information assembly" following a first demonstration of over 250,000 people in the same El Zocalo square on July 8.

In a Sunday interview with Spain's El Pais, Lopez Obrador said the election was a "monumental fraud", adding that there was fraud during and after the July 2 election.

Apparently the fraud was committed during the initial partial vote recount, by "opening ballot boxes" and "falsifying" the certified tally lists attached to each box.

Meantime Calderon has said he will respect the tribunal's decision, but in the meantime is making preparations for government. He has named two senior aides to head his transition team, and is planning a victory tour of Mexico.

Lopez Obrador a successful mayor of Mexico City has been insistently described as a "left wing populist", while Conservative Mr. Calderon, a former Energy Minister under President Vicente Fox, has the strong support from the local and international business communities.