Opposition to appeal Mexico presidential vote results

AFP - The party of the leftist candidate who came in second in Mexico's presidential election said it would challenge the results, which gave a win to Enrique Pena Nieto, in the Electoral Court.

"We'll go to the Electoral Court in the coming days, within the appropriate time frame," said Jesus Zambrano, chairman of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, whose candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador lost the July 1 vote.

The Federal Electoral Institute on Sunday completed the full count of all ballots and confirmed a win for Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

It now falls upon the Electoral Court to address any dispute such as the one Zambrano promised.

Pena Nieto drew 38.21 percent of the vote, trailed by Lopez Obrador with 31.59 percent and the ruling National Action Party's Josefina Vazquez Mota with 25.41 percent.

Lopez Obrador also came in second in the 2006 presidential election, that time by the slimmest of margins -- less than one percentage point.

He led protests that virtually paralyzed Mexico City for more than a month, claiming fraud in the contest in which outgoing President Felipe Calderon was elected.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through Mexico City on Saturday against the presidential election win of Pena Nieto, accusing him and his party of widespread vote-buying.

Immediately after the presidential vote, Soriana supermarkets were swamped with people armed with yellow gift cards they said came from the PRI, fearful that the cards would be canceled after the election.

The PRI insists it ran a clean election, and Soriana said the cards with union logos are part of a special buyer's program. At least one PRI governor said the cards were part of a state program to help school children.

Pena Nieto, 45, is scheduled to take office in December. He inherits a country engaged in a brutal drug war and an economy struggling to create jobs. Nearly half of all Mexicans are poor, according to government figures.

An ex-governor of the populous state of Mexico, Pena Nieto is married to glamorous soap opera star Angelica Rivera and benefited from family connections with powerful old guard PRI politicians, as well as a savvy media team that carefully stage-managed his appearances.

Pena Nieto's PRI was synonymous with the Mexican state as it governed for seven decades until 2000 using a mixture of patronage, repression, rigged elections and bribery.

Source: http://www.france24.com/en/20120709-opposition-appeal-mexico-presidential-vote-results

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