[4Canada]

In relation to this:<br /> <br /> <a>"Stealing Mexico"</a>

[Milton]

Your link doesn't work.

[4Canada]

I'll try again.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://baltimorechronicle.com/2006/063006Palast.shtml">"Stealing Mexico"</a><br /> <br /> Some strange things happened the first time and me being the Luddite I am.....well, lets just say I've tried using a different address this time.<br />

[Milton]

Thanks for fixing the link 4Canada.<br /> <br /> Here are the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5137528.stm">election results</a> as of this morning.

[Milton]

The preliminary results issued by the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) gave Mr Calderon 36.38% of the vote compared with 35.34% for Mr Lopez Obrador.<br /> <br /> But Mr Lopez Obrador said he would not accept the results, which he believed had "many inconsistencies".<br /> <br /> His party claimed some voting places were counted twice while others were not counted at all. <br /> Read the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5148552.stm"> BBC</a> article.<br /> <br /> There is this from <a href="http://www.narconews.com/Issue42/article1945.html">Narco News</a><br /> <br /> "One day before, as Dr. Rosalba waited another Monday at the prison entrance, the Mexican State of Vicente Fox seemed on the verge of getting away with a gigantic electoral fraud next Sunday to impose a victory by his candidate Felipe Calderón. The umpires at IFE had already denied accusations that software contracts the IFE has with companies related to Calderón’s brother-in-law, Diego Hildebrando Zavala Gómez del Campo, and his company Hildebrando, had corrupted either the vote-counting computers or the national list of voters.<br /> <br /> But that Monday morning, Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui, who hosts the nightly talk show Aristegui on CNN Español, dropped a political bombshell on her popular morning program on XEW radio in Mexico City. There, live on the air, she used the Internet to enter a restricted area on a Calderón campaign website, with the username of Hidebrando117 and a password she received from an unnamed source. There, Aristegui found proof of the electoral cyber-fraud of the century: the entire national IFE voter list cross-referenced with supposedly confidential government information about which voters receive government assistance or contracts from all the federal agencies. Live and on the air she found information about herself, her family members, about the IFE president, and about the PRI presidential candidate.<br /> <br /> Moments later, the Calderón campaign shut down that section of its Internet site, but the cat was out of the bag. Much of the Mexican national media ignored the story. But Aristegui repeated it Monday night on the international TV news network CNN and La Jornada – a pro-PRD newspaper, the fourth largest in Mexico – led with the story on Tuesday (on Wednesday, a La Jornada editorial criticized the information blockade by other media, saying “in spite of its relevance, the corresponding information was minimized and even ignored by most electronic and commercial media”).<br />

[4Canada]

Sounds like we need to start looking for election fraud in Canada. Seems to me that this is becoming the norm when the US doesn't like the potential outcome of an election anywhere around the globe. They like to keep it skin-teeth close however so that calling it in their favour will be almost impossible to dispute. Florida in 2000 was just the beginning of the end.

[Milton]

This is from the article "Bushwhacking Mexico's Election" written by Greg Palast and Matt Pascarella and may be read in its entirety at <a href="http://http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=4973"> PEJ News</a> <br /> <br /> Gore v. Bush.<br /> Kerry v Bush.<br /> Lopez Obrador v Calderon.<br /> <br /> As in Florida in 2000, as in Ohio in 2004, the exit polls show the voters voted for the progressive candidate, but the race is “officially” too close to call.<br /> <br /> But they will call it — after they steal it. Reuters News agency reports that, as of 8pm Eastern time, as voting concluded in Mexico, exit polls show Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the “left-wing” Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) leading in exit polls over Felipe Calderon of the ruling conservative National Action Party (PAN).<br /> <br /> <br /> We’ve said again and again: Exit polls tell us how voters say they voted, but the voters can’t tell pollsters if their vote will be counted. In Mexico, counting the vote is an art, not a science — and Calderon’s ruling crew is very artful indeed. The PAN-controlled official electoral commission, not surprisingly, has announced that the presidential tally is too close to call.<br /> <br /> Calderon’s election is openly supported by the Bush Administration.

[Milton]

This is part of an article by Al Giordano and may be read in full at <a href="http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/07/72487.html"> NYC Indymedia</a><br /> <br /> A Closer Look at Mexico's Preliminary Election Results<br /> <br /> Millions of Mexicans Were Denied the Chance to Vote or Had Their Votes Nullified<br /> <br /> By Al Giordano<br /> <br /> In a few days we will begin to see who is bullshiting and stonewalling, and what is the real story. The preliminary PREP results are not the official results. The official results can only come in an "acta" or act signed by the elections officials in each polling place, who are chosen by lottery from the citizenry, much like, say, a jury pool. It is a crime to tamper with an "acta." No legal punishment exists for sending in a false PREP report.<br /> <br /> All the analysis of election numbers in Mexico so far are based on the Federal Election Institute (IFE)'s "PREP" system. PREP stands for "Programa de Resultados Electorales Preliminares" (in English, "Preliminary Electoral Results Program."<br /> <br /> By definition it is not the vote tally. It is a preliminary report: a poll, nothing more. In a few days we will begin to see who is bullshiting and stonewalling, and what is the real story.<br /> <br /> But the PREP results are not the official results. The official results can only come in an "acta" or act signed by the elections officials in each polling place, who are chosen by lottery from the citizenry, much like, say, a jury pool. It is a crime to tamper with an "acta." No legal punishment exists for sending in a false PREP report.<br /> <br /> For example, in "casilla 1019 Contigua 3 del Estado de México" (polling place #1019 of the State of Mexico), the PREP reports 88 votes for López Obrador, 62 for Calderon, 41 for Madrazo, 21 for Mercado, 4 for Campa, 8 for write-in candidates, and 7 ballots annulled ("hanging chad" type scenario on those: Let's see if IFE allows those to be reviewed in the official count).<br /> <br /> You are supposed to be able to verify that at the IFE website, district by district. But the Internet access to the IFE system has been crashing constantly ever since last night.<br /> <br /> Fortunately, when it has been up, El Universal has been downloading the results and putting them on its own website at this URL: <a href="http://prep.eluniversal.com.mx/">prep.eluniversal.com.mx/</a><br /> <br /> . Punch in that polling place, and those are the results.<br /> <br /> However, a photograph of the ACTA reveals that Lopez Obrador received 188 votes there - a disappearance of 100 in a single polling place where about 320 votes were cast.<br /> <br /> More common proofs are emerging of "shavings" of votes: six here, two there, the majority - coincidentally? - shaved from Lopez Obrador's tallies.<br /> <br /> There are also documents surging that show that more votes were counted than voters who cast votes in many districts.<br />

[Brent Swain]

I've sat many times in the polling place , watched the ballots go in the box, and counted them after the vote. As long as we have paper ballots and representatives from all parties are present to watch the whole proccess from start to finish, it is extremly difficult to rig the vote. Any attempt to bring in computer voting should be viewed as an attempt to make the vote more corruptible.<br /> How they do rig the vote is by media spin by pro right wing media organisations. The efectiveness of such is directly porpotionate to our gullibility and our failure to seek out all sources of political information, however obscure.<br /> brent

[Milton]

Citizens Denounce Electoral Fraud In a Show of Democracy from Below<br /> <br /> By Nancy Davies<br /> Commentary from Oaxaca<br /> <br /> July 3, 2006<br /> <br /> Why was this election in Oaxaca different from all other elections?<br /> <br /> For one thing, the students at Radio Universidad, the station of the Benito Juarez Autonomous University of Oaxaca (UABJO in its Spanish initials) opened their phone lines for citizens to call in with accusations of electoral fraud throughout Election Day.<br /> <br /> I monitored during one hour, from 2:15 to 3:15 P.M.. In that time eleven citizen calls from different areas of greater Oaxaca City were aired. Three reported that there were no ballots available: voters had been waiting three hours, six hours and seven hours, respectively. One caller said her credentials for voting were rejected. Four calls reported that the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was handing out food and staples in exchange for votes. One reported that in the town of Zaachila nobody marked off names of those who had already voted.<br /> <br /> And then there was a call saying that the state police barracks at Santa Maria Coyotepec held thousands of ballots which the troops were busily marking for distribution to the polls at the close of the day – a believable scenario given that so many polling places had “inadvertently” run out of ballots. The caller said his uncle, a police officer, just couldn’t bring himself to do it and blew the whistle. The uncle said the police had been working for three days to mark the ballots. The caller’s voice wavered with emotion as he described his uncle’s information.<br /> <br /> As Radio Universidad announced each of the possible trouble spots, the public was urged to get there with video cameras, personal cameras, and cell-phone cameras, to document the potential fraud. And they did.<br /> <br /> Citizens responded to the marked ballots by surrounding the police quarters into the evening, to prevent the transfer of the stolen ballots, neatly marked for the PRI, to closed polls. The newspaper Noticias featured the story on its front page July 3, adding details of how people stood outside the police building shouting, “fraud, fraud”.<br /> <br /> You may read the rest of this article at <a href="http://http://www.narconews.com/Issue42/article1958.html">Narco News</a>.

[Milton]

"A Full Recount Would Show that López Obrador Won Mexico’s Presidency by More than One Million Votes<br /> The Tip of the Iceberg of the Crimes Committed by Mexican Electoral Authorities Is the Fraudulent Vote Count of 2006<br /> <br /> By Al Giordano<br /> Part II of a Special Series for The Narco News Bulletin<br /> <br /> July 8, 2006<br /> <br /> Commercial Media organizations are reporting that Felipe Calderòn won Sunday’s presidential election by 0.58 percent of the vote and will govern Mexico for the next six years, beginning on December 1.<br /> <br /> It would not be the first time that the Commercial Media has been wrong.<br /> <br /> Many of those reports have claimed that Wednesday’s first official count of precinct results in Mexico – 130,000 pieces of paper that claim to represent the vote tallies – was a “recount.”<br /> <br /> It would not be the first time that lazy “pack journalism” got a major international story wrong.<br /> <br /> The truth: No recount occurred on Wednesday, or before, or since. What occurred – we repeat – was only the first official count of precinct tallies.<br /> <br /> A Narco News investigation has found that in the small sample of precincts – less than one percent – where a recount was allowed, the shift in numbers away from Calderón was so drastic that, if recounts of all the ballots followed the same trend, the official results would invert and Andrés Manuel López Obrador would become the clear winner of the presidency by more than one million votes:"<br /> The rest of this story is at<a href="http://www.narconews.com/Issue42/article1967.html">Narco News</a>

[Milton]

Canada's official representative has congratulated Calderon on stealing the election, I think he phrased it as winning though. <br /> <br /> http://www.mexidata.info/id963.html<br /> <br /> <br /> July 8, 2006 [date is from the end]<br /> <br /> Mexico’s Election Results Challenged by AMLO<br /> <br /> Frontera NorteSur [ http://frontera.nmsu.edu ]<br /> <br /> Registering second place in Mexico’s official vote count, presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) of the center-left For the Good of All Coalition, led by the Democratic Revolution Party, intends to challenge the election results. Lopez Obrador announced on July 6 that he will ask Mexico's Federal Electoral Tribunal (TEPJF, aka TRIFE) to review the election results that gave rival candidate Felipe Calderon of President Fox's National Action Party (PAN) a majority of slightly more than one quarter-million votes.<br /> <br /> "We can't accept these results. There are many irregularities," Lopez Obrador declared. "I don't know of any place in the world with such a competitive election where the count is done in 24 hours and than sent to the tribunals." According to Lopez Obrador campaign coordinator Ricardo Monreal, the presidential hopeful seeks a "vote-by-vote, precinct-by-precinct" recount.<br /> <br /> The Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), Mexico's government agency that organized and oversaw the elections, reports that Calderon chalked up 15,284,000 votes to obtain 35.88 percent of the total ballots cast, while Lopez Obrador got 14,756,350 votes, or 35.31 percent of the total. The two candidates were trailed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party's (PRI) Roberto Madrazo, Patricia Mercado and Roberto Campa, in that order. Lopez Obrador backers are openly charging the election was a fraud.<br /> <br /> Elements of Lopez Obrador's pending legal challenge were laid out at a July 5 press conference in Mexico City attended by leaders of the former Mexico City mayor's electoral coalition. In a strong statement, Leonel Cota, national president of Lopez Obrador's PRD, alleged "a state election" was manipulated by "the group in power that seeks to hold power at all costs because their interests are at risk."<br /> <br /> Building their case, Cota, other leaders of the PRD ,and the allied Labor party contended that more votes than voters were registered at 781 precincts. Also more votes than ballots were counted in 52,000 electoral tallies and, strangely, voter turnout in some places exceeded 100 percent. Lopez Obrador supporter Gerardo Fernandez said impossible turnouts occurred in the states of Tamaulipas, Sinaloa, Jalisco, and Guanajuato, among others – all Calderon strongholds.<br /> <br /> Adding that the Lopez Obrador campaign had contacted the European Union with its concerns, Cota said his campaign was soliciting international organisms to request that Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) "clean-up the election" so that the next Mexican president is "not illegitimate like Carlos Salinas de Gortari was after 1988." <br /> <br /> Under fire for his agency's handling of the preliminary vote results, and then speeding along the official results, IFE President Luis Carlos Ugalde defended the July 2 voting as "a clean and transparent election." Ugalde said, "The citizens have manifested their will by a very narrow margin never before seen in Mexico. It's the most competitive presidential election in the history of Mexico." In a public statement just prior to the vote count, the IFE assured it would scrupulously follow all the legal conditions laid out for vote counting.<br /> <br /> In one victory speech, Felipe Calderon sounded conciliatory but his supporters booed when the virtual president-elect mentioned Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s name. Repeating a mantra from the campaign, and one that is fast reemerging in the press as protests against the election mount, Calderon made a curious reference to a supposedly violent opposition that virtually any journalist would have been hard-pressed to find during the long election race.<br /> <br /> "The peaceful force expressed at the polls won over the violent option of the opposition," Calderon said. He then urged all the political parties and their leaders to explore "the road of understanding."<br /> <br /> Despite the pending legal challenge to his victory, coupled with the fact that Calderon's victory has even yet to be initially recognized by the TEPFJ, Calderon received congratulatory calls on July 7 from US President George W. Bush, and the heads-of-state of Canada and Spain. Mexican dailies like Reforma headlined the phone calls in their subsequent editions.<br /> <br /> Irregularities, Aggressions Charged<br /> <br /> A growing number of press accounts from some international observers report election irregularities in many different regions of Mexico. In some cases, registered voters were denied the right to vote after being told their names did not appear on polling station lists. Frequently, large numbers of people were turned away from special precincts because of ballot limitations, and completed ballots were found thrown in the garbage outside Mexico City. <br /> <br /> In the midst of reporting on alleged cases of vote-buying, armed intimidation and the mass transport of voters to the polls in Tamaulipas state, Arturo Solis, the editor of the Reynosa-based Internet portal enlineadirecta.info, denounced that his website was hacked and the information contained in it destroyed on Election Day. On Friday, July 7, Lopez Obrador's official web site also was reported hacked in the early morning hours.<br /> <br /> According to Cuauhtemoc Sandoval Ramirez, a former senator and PRD deputy-elect from Guerrero, two PRD election officials were murdered in a still unclear attack that occurred in a narco-infested region of his state. Sandoval told Frontera NorteSur that at least 250 PRD members have been murdered in Guerrero since the party was founded in 1989. The murders remain unpunished, he added.<br /> <br /> The non-profit, California-based Global Exchange sponsored a delegation of 25 international observers that observed the election in Mexico, Oaxaca and San Luis Potosi states. Global Exchange observers documented possible cases of vote-buying by the PRI and PAN political parties, illegal confiscations of voter identification cards, ballot shortages at special precincts and, in Chimihulalcan, Mexico state, a town that has suffered a recent wave of femicide, heated conflict between an IFE official and PRI members.<br /> <br /> While stating that delegation members were impressed with "the hard work, good humor, patriotism and commitment to democracy" of Mexicans from many walks of life who were involved in the election process, a draft Global Exchange report contended that "electoral fraud in the form of (coercion) and vote-buying continues to a problem in many areas of Mexico. "Structural problems in conducting elections,” stated the report, "continue to impede the full transparency and accountability necessary for functional democracy."<br /> <br /> In Mexico City, Global Exchange delegation member Yuriko Takahasi, a professor of political science at the University of Kobe in Japan, randomly examined the preliminary results of the IFE's District One for senatorial and presidential candidates. Out of 400 precincts in the district, Takahasi found that results for the presidential election were missing from 9 precincts, and the results for senators missing from 5 precincts.<br /> <br /> Takahasi's findings coincide with an initial analysis by the Mexican election watchdog group Civic Alliance that revealed a pattern of more votes for senators than for president in states where Lopez Obrador had strength, and more votes for president than for senator in states where Calderon enjoyed popular support. In the Lopez Obrador strongholds, 312,450 more votes for senators than president were tallied, while in the pro-Calderon zones, 403,740 more votes for president than senators were tabulated.<br /> <br /> In an interview with Frontera NorteSur, Takahasi cautioned against making a rush to judgment. "I don't think that we can simply conclude from these findings that these are the consequences of an intentional manipulation," she said. "This might be just a miscalculation or something wrong with the counting process … this kind of problem could be found across the country, right? That's why I think that recounting at the precinct level would be important."<br /> <br /> The discrepancy discovered by Takahasi was a very curious one, since Mexican voters in federal elections are given three separate paper ballots to cross out: one for senators, one for federal deputies, and one for president. If a voter does not cast one of the ballots, it means that the paper ballot was either thrown away, tucked away somewhere by precinct or district officials, or perhaps blown away in the wind – all difficult propositions given the careful vigilance election authorities and political parties now claim exists.<br /> <br /> Speaking to reporters in Mexico City, Ted Lewis, the coordinator of the Global Exchange delegation, urged that all the election packets be opened and the votes counted individually. Comparing the situation facing Mexico to the 2000 Florida presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, Lewis said, "The experience we had in the United States with the 2000 election makes it necessary to take time in this process."<br /> <br /> The North is Painted Blue<br /> <br /> If the TEPJF turns down Lopez Obrador's challenge and approves Calderon's victory, the northern border states will have played key roles in the 43-year-old candidate's triumph. Official results show the PAN's blue color splashing Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas, as well as the PAN-dominated Bajio region of central Mexico that includes the country's second largest city, Guadalajara. A bastion of conservatism and ultra-right movements, the Bajio was the center of the Catholic Cristero revolt of the 1920s. <br /> <br /> Not only did the PAN take Sonora and Nuevo Leon in the federal elections for president and congressional representatives, but the center-right party dominated state elections in the two border states as well. PAN candidates won the mayoral races for the Sonoran border cities of San Luis Rio Colorado and Nogales, while the PRI recovered the state capital of Hermosillo and came out on top in the border town of Agua Prieta. In Nuevo Leon, home of the important industrial city of Monterrey, the PAN won 16 of the 26 state legislative districts, and 16 municipal governments.<br /> <br /> In a not so surprising development, the PAN scored victories in cosmopolitan Monterrey and surrounding areas, while the PRI's triumphs were concentrated in mostly rural, traditional strongholds. Remaining a marginal force in Nuevo Leon politics, the PRD nevertheless quintupled its vote percentage from a previous 2 percent share to 10 percent, thus netting a small regional gain that reflected the party's surge nationally.<br /> <br /> While many US media outlets are praising Calderon's declared victory, and assessing his election as an endorsement of the status quo, it should be noted that even the official vote figures show Calderon receiving about 700,000 less votes than fellow PAN member Vicente Fox did in 2000. On the other hand, the PRD's Lopez Obrador received more than twice the number of votes than the PRD's 2000 candidate, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas. <br /> <br /> Dramatically, the July 2 election revealed a Mexican version of the so-called blue-red state split in the United States, with Calderon's strength generally concentrated in the northern border zone and in the Bajio, while Lopez Obrador dominated the south, Mexico City, Michoacan and Zacatecas. In one sense, the election results could be viewed as reflecting regional, ideological, class, ethnic, cultural, demographic, and economic polarizations persisting and evolving in Mexico. The big loser in this scenario is the centrist PRI, which suffered what virtually all analysts are calling a debacle. <br /> <br /> What Next?<br /> <br /> Lopez Obrador's campaign is expected to file its official challenge with the TEPJF very soon. Mexico's highest electoral authority will then have until early September to decide whether to validate the election or throw it out, an unprecedented decision that would mark a major constitutional test for Mexican democracy. Vowing to not give up the fight, Lopez Obrador and his supporters plan a major rally for Mexico City on July 8 to inform their base about alleged electoral irregularities and subsequent courses of action.<br /> <br /> Meanwhile, a nervous calm has descended over the country as people wait to see what happens next. In recent days, the Mexican stock and peso markets, reacting in part to the election, have gone up and down with the latest twists in the news. Political pressures against an election challenge are growing, and some voices are warning of economic instability if a post-electoral conflict is allowed to ensue. At the end of the day, the TEPJF will have the choice of making an independent decision based on legal premises or conceding to other interests and considerations.<br /> <br /> Additional sources: Reforma, July 8, 2006. Proceso/Apro, July 3 and 7, 2006. Articles by Jenaro Villamil, Jesusa Cervantes, and the editorial staff. La Jornada, July 3, 4 and 7, 2006. Articles by Jesus Aranda, Alonso Urrutia, Fabiola Martinez, and Enrique Galvan Ochoa. CNN en Español, July 7, 2006. Televisa, July 6, 2006. Oncenoticias, July 6, 2006. El Heraldo (Aguascalientes)/Agencia Reforma, July 3, 2006. La Cronica (San Luis Rio Colorado), July 3, 2006. Article by Santiago Barroso Alfaro and Juan Jose Razzo. Nuevo Dia (Nogales), July 3 and 4, 2006. enlineadirecta.info, July 3, 2004.<br /> <br /> ——————————<br /> Frontera NorteSur (FNS)<br /> Center for Latin American and Border Studies<br /> New Mexico State University<br /> Las Cruces, New Mexico<br /> ——————————<br /> (Reprinted with authorization from Frontera NorteSur, a free, on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news source. FNS can be found at http://frontera.nmsu.edu/)<br /> <br /> Translation FNS 07/08/06

[Milton]

July 12, 2006<br /> Please Distribute Widely<br /> <br /> Dear Colleague,<br /> <br /> Things are looking worse and worse in Mexico for the Felipe Calderón,<br /> his National Action Party, and the Federal Elections Institute that<br /> prematurely announced his victory. New evidence of fraud and crimes<br /> on the part of the electoral authorities is appearing every day. The<br /> White House is backtracking from its initial enthusiasm for<br /> Calderón's "victory." Citizens in towns and cities across Mexico are<br /> standing up to make sure the crimes they've witnessed and the<br /> stealing of their election is known. And Narco News isn't missing a<br /> beat.<br /> <br /> Over the past week, Al Giordano has filed three parts in an ongoing<br /> series about Mexico's post-electoral conflict. In his latest<br /> installment, Giordano writes:<br /> <br /> "At six p.m. last night, Monday, July 10, neighbors of the office of<br /> the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE, in its Spanish initials) in<br /> Comalcalco, Tabasco, witnessed a crime against democracy. They didn't<br /> just stand there. They did something about it. And this one small<br /> example of the fighting spirit of the Mexican people explains why the<br /> historic presidential election fraud of July 2, 2006 will not stand.<br /> <br /> "Nine days after the fact, neither the IFE, nor President Vicente<br /> Fox, nor his National Action Party (PAN), nor their candidate Felipe<br /> Calderón, nor the Commercial Media at their service, have been able<br /> to reassert control over the juggernaut of facts, audio and video<br /> evidence, and public outrage that today tramples their anti-<br /> democratic gambit. The Fraud of 2006, and those who attempted it, are<br /> drowning under an authentically democratic tide. Take, for example,<br /> what just occurred in the Tabasco town of Comalcalco."<br /> <br /> Find out what occurred by reading the full story, here, in the <a href="http://www.narconews.com">Narco<br /> News Bulletin:</a>

[4Canada]

I didn't see the entire Bush/Steve the Beave statements they made after their meeting but I did see the portion where STB stated twice I think it was that the Mexican elections were "clean"? I thought he was making too fine a point on that issue to keep it from looking obvious that there was a dirty election!

[Milton]

MEXICO CITY, July 16 — For the second time in eight days, thousands of supporters of the leftist presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, filled this city’s historic central plaza to demonstrate their support for his demand for a vote-by-vote recount of Mexico’s disputed July 2 election.<br /> <br /> The crowds at this rally — several hundred thousand — were considerably larger than the last and seemed to indicate that the movement started by the embattled former mayor of Mexico City remained strong.<br /> <br /> The rest of this article is at the <br /> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/17/world/americas/17mexico.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1153108800&en=f87aaecc68f9b9db&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin">NY Times</a>