Friday 31 August 2012

Court rejects Left's challenge to Mexican elections

Mexico's supreme electoral court the TEPJF (Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación) rejected on 30 August the Left's demands that it cancel the 1 July presidential elections for alleged irregularities by the winning party, stating that evidence sent to the court had been insufficient or inappropriate, Mexico's media reported. The leftist coalition led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador as well as civic groups vehemently challenged the polls, ostensibly won by the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, alleging fraud in various forms including the purchase of votes. The court's president Alejandro Luna Ramos said that after detailed investigation of evidence presented by López Obrador's party the court found its "grievances" were "unfounded." The court he said acted here "with all the rigour the Constitution demands;" its seven members voted to approve a motion to nullify the complaint. The PRI was reportedly delighted and party members welcomed the declaration in comments on the website Twitter. López Obrador however declared on 31 August that he would rather be termed a "crazy fool" than accept the decision. The elections he said "were neither clean, nor free nor authentic. Consequently I shall not recognize an illegitimate power that has emerged from vote buying and other, serious violations of the Constitution and laws," CNN reported. In a communiqué read out in the capital, he urged his followers to gather in Mexico's historic central square the Zócalo on 9 September and decide on a course of action. He said "civil disobedience is an honourable duty" when directed at the "robbers" of Mexicans' "hopes."