Enrique Peña Nieto, a 45-year-old former state governor, looks set to win last Sunday’s presidential election with around 38 percent of the vote, returning the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to power after 12 years in opposition.
According to the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), with 98.29 percent of votes counted at 6 p.m. Thursday, Pena Nieto was leading his leftist rival Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador by a margin of 6.72 percent (18,892,476 to 15,575.265 votes), a much closer result than most opinion polls had predicted. Turnout for the election was 62 percent.
Josefina Vazquez Mota of President Felipe Calderon’s conservative National Action Party (PAN) will finish third, with a disappointing 24 percent of the vote.
World leaders, including President Barack Obama, called Peña Nieto after the election to congratulate him on his victory, which may be confirmed by the IFE this weekend.
Lopez Obrador said Monday that he would challenge the result based on numerous reports of irregularities, the specter of massive “vote buying” by the PRI and the bias of the “majority” of media outlets. He did not say how far he is prepared to take his protest but called the election “a national disgrace.” In 2006, after losing out to Calderon by less than one percent of the vote, he led massive streets protests to demand a recount of votes. He then spent several years cross-crossing the country to solidify his base, calling himself the “legitimate president of Mexico.”
Lopez Obrador said world leaders had acted “without knowledge of Mexican law” in endorsing Peña Nieto’s victory and were unaware of the legal conditions required before confirmation of the result can be given.
He also demanded a recount of every vote cast after his staff noted “irregularities” in 72 percent of the “actas” (returns) signed by citizens staffing the 143,132 polling places set up around the country.
IFE rejected his demand but said it would recount some ballots under recently approved clauses in electoral law. This can occur when a polling station records a gap of less than one percentage point between the two leading candidates, or for “inconsistencies” noted on the election returns (for the first time these are available for public scrutiny on the Internet). A recount is also triggered when the number of void ballots surpasses the difference in votes between the leading two candidates recorded at a polling station.
On Wednesday, staff at IFE offices all over the country began to open packets of ballots to recount more than 50 percent of the presidential vote and 60 percent of the Congressional vote. (State electoral districts also began recounts of many local races.)
The process is expected to be completed by Sunday, when the official result may be announced.
Peña Nieto’s campaign chief Luis Videgaray said the PRI would “vigorously defend our victory” and had no issue with a full recount.
Speaking only hours after polls closed Monday, IFE President Leonardo Valdes said the election had been carried out in “an exemplary manner.”
Cesar Augusto Gaviria, former Costa Rican president and the leader of a committee of election observers from the Organization of American States, noted that thanks to reforms enacted after the 2006 elections, Mexico now has the “most trustworthy and controlled voting system in Latin America.” He said the complaints of spending limit abuse by political parties, media bias and voter coercion were separate matters that needed to be addressed but not a reason under current Mexican law for IFE to annul the result of this election.
In a statement from the White House, President Obama “congratulated the Mexican people who have once again demonstrated their commitment to democratic values through a free, fair, and transparent election process.”
Calderon went on television Sunday evening to acknowledge the voting tendencies favoring Peña Nieto and to thank the hundreds of thousands of Mexican citizens who served as conscientious polling place officials on election day.
Fears that drug cartels might take advantage of the election to create chaos proved to be unfounded.
As the PRI celebrated its presumed triumph in the presidential election, returns from other races showed mixed fortunes.
The party fell short of overall majorities in the federal Chamber of Deputies (lower house) and Senate and will have to rely on the support of opposition legislators to push through economic reforms that Peña Nieto vigorously touted during his campaign.
The PRI candidate vowed to overhaul the nation’s tax collection system, open parts of the state oil monopoly Pemex to private investment and pass labor reforms to encourage job creation.
Ironically, PRI legislators have been responsible for blocking many of these reforms over the past decade.
Speaking to supporters after his victory, Peña Nieto promised no easing off in the fight against the drug cartels that has cost so many lives during the Calderon administration. “There will be no pact or truce with organized crime,” he stated.
Significantly, Peña Nieto promised that his rule would be markedly different from the authoritarian PRI governments of the past, which ruled Mexico through a combination of corruption and patronage.
“There is no return to the past,” he told supporters. “You have given us a second chance, and we will honor this with results.”
The new president will not only have to govern with the support of just over one-third of the Mexican people who voted (less than one-fifth of the total population), but he will also face the fierce opposition of a growing and motivated student movement that organized dozens of anti-Peña Nieto marches during the final weeks of the campaign.
Thousands of supporters of the “Yo soy 132” student movement marched in Mexico City Monday (and Guadalajara on Wednesday) in disapproval at the outcome of the presidential elections, which they say were tainted by irregularities and fraud.
As in the past, protesters in the capital marched to the headquarters of the Televisa media network, who students say influenced the election through biased coverage favoring Peña Nieto.
The movement’s leaders say they have 1,100 documented cases of electoral fraud.
State races
The PRI won three of the six state governorships up for grabs on Sunday (Jalisco, Chiapas, Yucatan) to consolidate its strength around the nation. The party controls 23 of the country’s 32 statehouses. However, left-wing coalition victories in Tabasco and Morelos suggest that the PRI is far from invincible and will face tough races in many states in the next couple of years, especially if opposition parties can come together and form pacts. The PAN retained the conservative state of Guanajuato but once the new governors have taken office, the party will rule the roost in just four Mexican states.
The resounding victory by PRD-PT-MC coalition candidate Miguel Angel Mancera in the Mexico City mayor’s race – he won with 63 percent of the vote – confirms the continuing dominance of the left in the capital.
Senate
PRI/Green Party: 61
PAN: 38 (9)
PRD/PT/Citizen’s Movement: 28
PANAL: 1
Chamber of Deputies
PRI/Green Party: 226
PRD/PT/Citizen’s Movement: 141
PAN: 122
PANAL: 11
Jalisco Congress
PRI: 19
PAN: 12
Citizen’s Movement: 5
PRD: 2
PANAL: 1
Jalisco municipalities
PRI/Green Party: 87
PAN: 22
Citizen’s Movement/PT: 9
PRD: 5
PANAL: 2