http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13845
by Joseph Richey, Special to CorpWatch
July 5th, 2006
Cartoon by Khalil Bendib ~see websource
Five major military contractors are competing to design a system to tackle up to two million undocumented immigrants a year in the United States. Boeing, Ericsson, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon are working on proposals that focus on high technology rather than high fences, but ignoring some of the fundamental problems of immigration.
At each checkpoint along the path to citizenship or deportation -- from desert wilderness to urban labyrinth -- private contractors are expected to be hired to detect, apprehend, vet, detain, process, and potentially incarcerate or deport people seeking economic and human rights asylum in the U.S.
An indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract, estimated at $2.5 billion, for the Secure Border Initiative Network (SBInet) will be awarded September 30th 2006, to build a seamless web of new surveillance technology and sensors with real time communications systems for Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The plan also includes funds for additional personnel, vehicles and physical infrastructure for fencing, and virtual fencing for U.S. borders.
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The Chariot Race
The competition between the five prime bidders for SBInet might be viewed as a chariot race: Each prime contractor will drive the chariot; the horses will be its team of small and large, mid-range and small companies. The chariot itself, the wheels and axles are Americans' security. The competition is supposed to crown the driver that can deliver the best value for the tax dollar.
Quick coalitions of vendors were formed with the help of homeland security brokers to meet the May 30 deadline for completed bids. Team building continues and Lockheed Martin made a special effort to develop a diverse one. After SBInet's Industry Day in January, it held its own "Vendor Industry" days in Seattle, Buffalo, and Washington DC. It also went shopping for local domestic security providers in El Paso, Laredo, Tucson, and San Diego. The outcome of this is secret: Lockheed has kept its cards closest to its chest in the pre-award period, choosing not to reveal its core team of companies.
But the other four potential prime contractors have announced their teams:
Boeing Integrated Defense Systems will join with DRS Surveillance and Kollsman, Government Services Incorporated (an L-3 subsidiary), Perot Systems, Reconnaissance Group and Unisys Global Public Sector. Boeing is the world's largest satellite manufacturer, and George Muellner, president of its Integrated Defense Systems business unit, cites its experience developing and deploying large-scale systems as a special qualification.
The Northrop Grumman team members announced so far are Anteon International, BearingPoint, General Dynamics, HNTB Corporation, L. Robert Kimball and Associates, Titan (an L-3 subsidiary), and SRA International.
Raytheon boasts that it is the only firm with experience monitoring a large geographic area such as the US-Mexico and US-Canadian borders. It also runs a 2 million square mile program in Brazil called System for Vigilance of the Amazon (SIVAM). Raytheon's core team is comprised of Apogen Technologies, BAE Systems, Bechtel National, Deloitte Consulting LLP, IBM, and 30 subcontractors, including Accenture.
Ericsson's team includes AEP Networks, America's Border Security Group, Camber Corporation, Computer Sciences Corporation, Fluor, MTC Technologies, Sy Coleman (an L-3 subsidiary), Texas A&M University, and the University of Texas at Austin.
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The new contract is part of the $43.5 billion Homeland Security (DHS) budget for 2007, with up to 20 percent increases in areas of internal enforcement and border protection. This has brought new fervor to the domestic security industry. Security executives around the country are pulling late hours preparing proposals and bids that will cost billions in federal tax dollars.
SBInet is part of a new Bush administration plan, announced in November 2005, for border security aimed at stopping illegal immigration along the more that 6,000 miles that make up America's land borders and dealing with the millions of undocumented aliens already in the country. While President Bush has said that "mass deportation is unrealistic," DHS is nonetheless ramping up CBP's "Expedited Removal Program" to detain and remove 1.5 million people along the border and the additional half a million apprehended 100 miles within US territory, according to the CBP and other agencies. Migrants who make it past the 100 mile mark and manage to stay 14 day without being caught are entitled to a hearing before a federal immigration judge.
The privatization of border security is unprecedented not only in cost but in the extent to which the federal government is ceding control to private companies.
"We're asking you to come back and tell us how to do our business. We're asking you. We're inviting you to tell us how to run our organization," Deputy Director of Homeland Security Michael Jackson told more than 400 defense contractors and homeland security industrialists at a government-sponsored "Industry Day" on January 25 this year. Jackson, a former Lockheed Martin vice-president, added: "This is an invitation to be a little bit, a little bit aggressive and thinking as if you owned and you were partners with the CBP."
Indeed his former company is one of the leading bidders for the contract. "We're expecting quick proposals on quick timelines," Keith Mordoff, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson told CorpWatch. One of the 50 largest companies in the U.S., the Maryland-based corporation has more than 100 executives working on the Secure Border Initative according to Mordoff. Four other corporations: Boeing, Ericsson, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon; are vying for the same SBI slice of the DHS budget pie. Each of these rivals has between 70 and 100 executives assembling security teams and designing the replacement for America's Shield Initiative.
High Walls versus High Tech
A few believe that high walls and fences are the answer like U.S. Republican Congressman Steve King from Iowa. Scale model in hand, he took the floor of the House of Representatives on May 24 with a hard-sell for a fence. "A little company like I used to own before I came to this Congress, and [that] my son operates today, could set a mile of this in a day pretty easily. . . .We are spending $8 billion on 2,000 miles. That is $4 million a mile. Now, if you pay me $4 million for a mile of that desert down there and say, guard that mile, Mr. King, I would say, for $4 million, you would not get a cockroach across that border."
But most of the proposals rely on high-technology rather than high fences. Sensor Technologies and Systems of Scottsdale, Arizona has already been recruited to join three of the prime contractors' teams. It sells a ground radar system that has been used in the conflict-ridden West Bank and has been proposed for environmental projects in protected areas such as Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge.
Walker Butler, the owner of Sensor, says physical fences would end up being more expensive: "Bottom line is that a fence would cost at least 10 times the radar system--including everything required--cameras, poles, power, communications. And it [a fence] would be much less effective."
Another key component of the several proposals are plans to use remotely controlled aerial surveillance technologies to reduce the use of expensive and unwieldy helicopter monitoring: Northrop offers its own unmanned aerial vehicle, the Global Hawk drone, as a challenge to Lockheed Martin's $14 million high-altitude surveillance blimp. Yet another potential sub-contractor, Octatron, offers an urban mini-drone with a six-foot wing-span with video and transmission equipment weighing just three pounds.
(The Octatron's urban mini-drone was recently temporally downed in Los Angeles by a prospective civil rights suit against Los Angeles Policy Department for violating privacy laws. But it should qualify for the competition in urban border cities San Diego, Mexicali, Nogales, Las Cruces, Juarez, El Paso, Laredo, and Brownsville.)
Bruce Walker, Northrop Grumman's director of homeland security, says that they will combine high-tech gizmos with trained personnel and planning to keep migrant labor from finding a way to the U.S. According to Walker, Northrop offers "the layered approach that is needed to secure the border. If wind or vandals take out cameras, back-up surveillance will be in place."
"We need operational control of the border. We want to push the immigrants into lanes that conforms with our ports of entry."
Doug Smith, head of Ericsson's Solutions agrees with DHS deputy director Jackson and industry experts. "This is not just about sensors and the coolest new UAV. Wireless communications is big. We think we can solve this with existing personnel today with the right tools." Smith envisions Border Patrol agents being able to send digital fingerprints of apprehended immigrants right from the desert floor to central locations and field offices. He is confident that Ericsson could leverage resources at all levels, from detection, apprehension to deportation. "We'll drive the buses, and handle everything."
Will They Work?
But underlying much of the debate over what kind of fence and how many high-tech gizmos will be needed to seal the border are more fundamental questions about the complex issue of illegal immigration. Experts note that given the demand for cheap labor in the U.S. and the poor prospects of economic development in much of the world, the solution will have to go higher than fences and wider than radar.
In March this year, Michael Chertoff, the head of the DHS, bluntly accessed the efficacy of barriers when he told a Senate committee, "They'll just go around a fence."
By Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) own estimates, half the country's undocumented workers enter the United States legally with temporary visas that they overstay. Voluntary departure orders have simply not worked so internal enforcement relies on ICE operations teams and the Office of Detention and Removal.
This too is being privatized: DHS has allocated $410.2 million in its 2007 budget for Detention and Removal to expand existing facilities, and new detention capabilities in the event of an immigration emergency, a contract awarded to Halliburton of Houston, Texas, a company formerly headed by U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney.
No Border between Government & Industry
Should Lockheed Martin win the SBInet contract, it will be difficult to avoid speculation that it had an inside track because former Lockheed Martin executive Jackson is Secretary Chertoff's right-hand man in the Secure Border Initiative.
But Lockheed argues that other advantages put it in the lead. Lockheed is "the only team that can leverage and apply lessons from a long list of successful programs to offer DHS integration experience not available from any other supplier," says company spokesperson Keith Mordoff. That experience includes programs in Border Security solutions, Biometrics, Transportation and Security solutions, Critical Infrastructure Protection, and Emergency Response and Management."
Asked about past performance touted in its proposal, spokesman Mordoff told CorpWatch that the company would "rather keep the competition guessing on what past programs we might be highlighting."
Yet Lockheed is by no means alone among the five contractors in having friends in high places: no fence, virtual or physical, seems likely to separate corporations from the Washington trough.
Investigative journalists have already uncovered examples of potential conflict of interest. Eric Lipton's two-part New York Times report ("Homeland Security Inc." June 18-19, 2006) reveals the dizzying velocity of the revolving door between DHS and the private domestic security industry. He lists nearly 100 former DHS and White House executives who have migrated toward magnet jobs with domestic security consulting, investing, and lobbying firms.
Exposés by the Washington Post's Robert O'Harrow ("The High Price of Homeland Security") describe a path to border security, citizenship and mass deportation that will be lined with pork for some of the GOP's most loyal supporters. His December 25, 2005 report with Scott Higham "Post-9/11 Rush Mixed Politics With Security," exposed a Kentucky Republican Congressman Harold Rogers' contributions from homeland security contractors. These companies - Reveal, NucSafe, Datatrac Information Services, and Science Applications International Corporation - all opened offices in Rogers' district once he became chairman of a key budget committee in Congress, then went on to receive sizable DHS contracts.
In the American Prospect, Sarah Posner's "Homeland Security for Sale," followed millions in DHS money by tracking the activities of the Philadelphia-based lobbyists Blank Rome LLP. Blank Rome chairman David Girard-diCarlo hired DHS officials Mark Holman, Carl Buchholtz and Ashley Davis, who worked closely with former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge. Blank Rome partner David Norcross also chaired the arrangement committee at the Republican National Convention in 2004.
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Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Populist Lopez Obrador Demands Full Vote
Recount in Mexico's Closest-Ever Presidential Race:
07-05-2006
Populist Lopez Obrador Demands Full Vote Recount in Mexico's Closest-Ever Presidential Race
Wednesday, July 5th, 2006
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/05/1329233Populist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and conservative Felipe Calderon both claim victory in Mexico's closest-ever presidential race. Lopez Obrador is now calling for a full recount after charges of voter fraud and manipulation. We go to Mexico City to get a report and host a roundtable discussion on the election. [includes rush transcript]
The party of populist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is demanding a full, vote-by-vote recount in Mexico's closest-ever presidential race.
A preliminary count of the votes cast in Sunday's election gave a slim lead to conservative candidate Felipe Calderon. But federal election officials acknowledged Tuesday that more than three million ballots - or eight percent of the total - remain uncounted. In the latest tally, Calderon leads Lopez Obrador by just over 0.6 of a percentage point, meaning the race is still too close to call.
On election night, both of Mexico's major television networks said their exit polls showed a statistical tie. Two hours later both candidates claimed victory in Mexico City.
The new election results were released on Tuesday after Lopez Obrador made charges of fraud and manipulation of the vote. His party is calling for a full recount of all 41 million votes claiming that some voting places were counted twice while others weren't counted at all. Although a formal recount will begin today, electoral authorities will only be required to re-check tallies from each ballot box.
Lopez Obrador has been running on a progressive platform calling for greater aid to the poor; free medical care and food subsidies for the elderly; the rewriting of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement; and the end to the further privatization of the country's oil and gas industries. Meanwhile Felipe Calderon has received the strong backing of the business community.
- David Brooks, U.S. Bureau Chief for Mexican Daily newspaper La Jornada.
- Gilberto López Rivas, anthropologist with the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico City. He is also a frequent contributor to La Jornada.
- John Ross, a regular contributor to the Nation, Counterpunch and La Jornada. He has also written three books chronicling the Zapitista movement in Mexico. His latest is "Making Another World Possible: Zapatista Chronicle 2000-2006" to be published by Nation Books in October 2006. His most recent article about the Mexico elections is on the Nation.com website and is titled "Disputed Election Raises Tensions in Mexico."
- George Grayson, professor of Government at the College of William and Mary. He also writes a regular column for "Milenio Semanal," a weekly magazine in Mexico. Professor Grayson's latest book is about presidential contender, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and is titled "Mesías Mexicano," - in English, "Mexican Messiah."
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
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AMY GOODMAN: On election night, both of Mexico’s major television networks said their exit polls showed a statistical tie. Two hours later, both candidates claimed victory. This is Lopez Obrador speaking in Mexico City.
ANDRES MANUEL LOPEZ OBRADOR: [translated] I want to tell the Mexican people that, according to our data, we won the presidency of the republic.
AMY GOODMAN: Felipe Calderon also claimed victory on Sunday night.
FELIPE CALDERON: [translated] We have won the presidential elections, and that data will be confirmed by the Federal Electoral Institute.
AMY GOODMAN: The new election results were released on Tuesday after Lopez Obrador made charges of fraud and manipulation of the vote. His party is calling for a full recount of all 41 million votes, claiming that some voting places were counted twice, while others weren't counted at all. Although a formal recount will begin today, electoral authorities will only be required to recheck tallies from each ballot box.
Lopez Obrador has been running on a progressive platform calling for greater aid to the poor; free medical care and food subsidies for the elderly; the rewriting of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement; and the end to the further privatization of the country's oil and gas industries. Meanwhile, Felipe Calderon has received the strong backing of the business community.
We're joined now in our Firehouse studio by David Brooks, the U.S. Bureau Chief for the Mexican daily newspaper La Jornada. On the phone from Mexico, we're joined by Gilberto Lopez Rivas. He’s with the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico City, frequent contributor to La Jornada. We're also joined on the line by John Ross, a journalist and author who has written three books chronicling the Zapatista movement in Mexico. His latest book is called Making Another World Possible: Zapatista Chronicle 2000-2006. And we're joined by Professor George Grayson, Professor of Government at the College of William and Mary. He also writes a regular column for a weekly magazine in Mexico. We welcome you all to Democracy Now!
David Brooks, let's begin with you. Were you surprised by the vote?
DAVID BROOKS: The election had been neck-and-neck for the last couple months, although Lopez Obrador's people had expected to win by 2, 3, 4 percentage points, so everybody was a bit upset about this tie. And the question is now that nobody quite knows what the result is in Mexico. And that uncertainty and that doubt that has been brought upon the electoral institution for not being clear about what happened with these three million votes, what's happened with the preliminary results, has led for more uncertainty, and so now we’re in uncharted terrain in Mexico.
AMY GOODMAN: George Grayson, you're with the College of William and Mary, a professor who writes a weekly column in Mexico. Can you talk about your reaction to the vote?
GEORGE GRAYSON: I agree with David. I was out on election day as an observer visiting various precincts, and I found it to be a relatively calm, orderly process, except their so-called special precincts, casillas especiales, where if you happen to be a tourist from another part of Mexico, you can cast your vote. Regrettably, the election law only allows these special precincts to have 750 ballots. And I was in the neighborhood of the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, where there are just thousands and thousands of tourists on the weekend. And in the five special precincts around the Basilica or in that particular borough of the city, all of them ran out of ballots, and they were looking for another place to vote. I think that was probably more bureaucratic incompetence and the failure of the legislature here to update a law that's about 11 years old. But otherwise, the voting seemed to go smoothly.
AMY GOODMAN: John Ross, you've been writing extensively, well, for years and in the lead-up to the election and now afterwards. Your assessment today of what the numbers mean that have so far been revealed and how this reverberates with the past?
JOHN ROSS: I think I'd like first to say that we need to put this in context. This is the most important election that Mexico has had perhaps since the Mexican Revolution. This is an election which will tell us whether Mexico is part of North America or is, in fact, in alignment with the left democracies in Latin America that have developped. This is an election that's been based on the class war. Lopez Obrador represents the poor people in this country. This is poor versus rich, brown versus white, worker versus boss. This is, in fact, an electoral class war, and in fact, if the election isn't straightened out real quickly it's not only going to be an electoral class war.
My assessment is that, in relation to what Professor Grayson said, that you can't tell anything from what happens in the poles on election day, elections here are stolen before, during and after the election, and so now we’re in the aftermath, and we saw the disappearance of 3 million votes from the PREP, from the preliminary totals. Only 2.5 million have been put back in there. There's still 600,000 votes out there. I personally believe that those votes were not counted on Sunday night to give the impression that Felipe Calderon had won the election. The PREP, of course, can't determine who won the election, but if we look at the news media, particularly the New York Times, Washington Post, L.A. Times, they're all giving it to Calderon on the basis of this PREP, from which the Federal Electoral Institute withdrew 3 million votes, in order to give the impression that Calderon had won, and I think that’s a measure of how the Federal Electoral Institute is active throughout this entire electoral process.
Way before the campaigns began in January, when Luis Carlos Ugalde was appointed president of the IFE, we began to see a pronounced bias against Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and in favor of Felipe Calderon in the decisions that the IFE and Ugalde were making. This latest event where three million votes disappeared and then were placed back in after Ugalde was called on it, and he only on a television interview yesterday morning admitted that these votes had been taken out.
The other thing, Amy, that we really have to look at is that there's an enormous disparity between the numbers of votes that have been cast for senators and deputies and those for the president. And interestingly enough, in those states in which the PRD, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's party, has won the elections, there are much many fewer votes for the president than there are for the senators and deputies, whereas in the states that the PAN now controls, there are many more votes for the president than there are for the senators and the deputies.
And the state that’s most, I think, blaring here is the state of Tabasco. There were 13% more votes for the president than there are for senators and congressmen. And I say that Tabasco is an interesting case, because both the candidate from the PRI, Roberto Madrazo, and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador are natives of Tabasco, and of course there would be a much higher vote for president than there would be for senators or deputies. So, that’s where we are.
Today, they begin to tally up the districts. There's going to be a huge fight about whether or not you get to open up the ballot box, open up the bags in which the ballots are counted, and recount those things. What we're seeing here is a replay of the 1988 election, which was stolen from Cuauhtemoc Cardenas by an electoral authority that was then part of the government. The IFE is supposed to be autonomous. But we're seeing a replay right down to the fact that on Saturday night two poll-watchers [inaudible] were shot, were killed. After the 1988 election was stolen from Cardenas, hundreds and hundreds of his supporters were killed in political violence here.
AMY GOODMAN: Your response, Professor George Grayson? You, too, are in Mexico City right now.
GEORGE GRAYSON: I think it's been a public relations nightmare for the Federal Electoral Institute because Lopez Obrador was asserting that there were several million votes that hadn't been tallied, and the head of the institute did recognize that yesterday. I think it's too early to say that the fix is in. And one of the problems was when they constituted the political council of IFE, which, as John Ross said so accurately, supervises the election, issues credentials and gives a preliminary tally, Lopez Obrador's party wasn't included on that nine-member council. And I think it was a mistake by the main political forces here not to just lock the various party leaders' room and insist that they have someone from Lopez Obrador's party. Now, his party can be feisty, sometimes downright cantankerous, but it was a major error, I think, of Congress and of the government secretary not to include his party in the race.
Before we get to the point of painting him as some kind of a Franklin Roosevelt, I wrote a book about him that was published two months ago; followed him for three years and went to his hometown of Tepetitan in rural Tabasco, and I think he's done a service to the nation in that he's focused on the plight of the poor here, because 10% of the elite control 45% of the wealth. And it's especially -- these disparities are especially notable in the south. And if you look at a map of the vote on Sunday, it's virtually the north versus the south, the north being the more developed and more U.S.-oriented part of the country, the south being less developed, lots of natural resources but mal-distribution of income and larger indigenous populations.
But Lopez Obrador, for his genuine commitment to poor people, does have messianic tendencies. He would lead marches from Tabasco to Mexico City, which he called “exodus” marches. When he became mayor of Mexico City, he rechristened the city the “City of Hope,” La Ciudad de la Esperanza. He calls himself the little ray of hope. And during his first three years as mayor, he regularly distorted or perverted actions of the city council. They passed a bill, for example, requiring all motorists to have auto insurance. He simply told the Secretary of Transportation not to enforce that. The city council passed legislation saying we want a transparency council, so we can have a local Freedom of Information Act. He tied that initiative up in knots, and so now it has become a toothless tabby cat. So he has a strong commitment to the poor, but he also has a belief that law is the will of the people, not actions of elected officials.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor George Grayson, we'll get response after break. Professor Grayson speaking to us from Mexico City; John Ross also there; independent journalist David Brooks in studio here in New York, of La Jornada, Mexican newspaper. When we come back we'll also speak to an Gilberto Lopez Rivas, who is an anthropologist in Mexico City.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: I'm Amy Goodman, as we talk about the elections right now in Mexico. The PRD candidate, Lopez Obrador, has called for a recount, with the officials saying it's too close to call, though many are calling it for the PAN candidate. We have a roundtable of people to speak. In addition to John Ross, independent journalist in Mexico City, we're speaking with Professor Grayson there, David Brooks of La Jornada in our New York studio, and we're now joined by Gilberto Lopez Rivas, anthropologist with the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico City. Can you first share your reaction to this election -- they say the closest in history -- and this latest news of the three million votes that have not yet been counted?
GILBERTO LOPEZ RIVAS: Well, I think that we have the phantom of the fraud election and state election appearing now in the public opinion and letters. Hundreds of letters in electronic means of communication are counting the irregularities and the forms in which this fraud is carried on by the Institute of Federal Elections. And I think that the counting of the votes could clear this fraud or could confirm that there is complicity between Ugalde, who is the head of the Institute of Federal Elections, and the President Fox. So now we have, as the other professor said, a nation divided by the vote but united in the clarification process that is needed to accept any president in the future. So I think that we are in the middle of a big conflict that is going to explode in these days. The counting, you have to finish at the end of the week. But I think that the people is not so happy with what is happening now.
AMY GOODMAN: In terms of history, going back to Cuauhtémoc Cardenas, 1988, afterwards there was terrible violence. A number of people were killed. Lopez Obrador being one of the top aides to Cardenas at the time. Do you see this being repeated today?
GILBERTO LOPEZ RIVAS: Yes, but with the difference that we have a society more clear, with more consciousness of what is happening. And if we have a modernization of fraud by the means of the electronic counting, we have also the democratization of what is happening by the means of the electronic mail. So what is happening now is that I receive hundreds of mails that are calling to demonstrations. As a matter of fact, today we have several demonstrations in front of the electoral body counting. So, I think that the society, Mexican society, cannot afford another fraud and especially with this officially difference that today appears in only 0.63% of difference between one and the other candidate. So I think that there are more forces, political and social forces, that are going to oppose to this kind of result.
AMY GOODMAN: The Los Angeles Times is reporting today suspicion among Lopez Obrador's supporters was heightened Monday when the investigative magazine Proceso, citing police intelligence sources, reported that senior Interior Ministry officials had attempted to shape media coverage on election night. Ministry officials called the news directors at Mexico’s two leading television networks and requested that they not broadcast the results of their exit polls, Proceso reported, those exit polls, of course, showing that Lopez Obrador was in the lead.
GILBERTO LOPEZ RIVAS: Yeah. It’s completely -- the behavior of the means of communication -- the television, especially -- is completely in the side of the government, because, well, we have a legislative reform that gave them the complete monopoly of the media. So I believe that the behavior during the night of the election was completely suspicious, and nobody explains why they don't give the election exit polls that in another occasion was kind of something natural. And everybody's talking about that there is a big complicity between the big means of the media and the electoral body and the power. So, this belief is going to thousands and thousands of citizens that are very, very angry at what is happening. So I think that we are going to have days and weeks and probably months, and I think that we are not going to have a president in several weeks that is going to be accepted for the Mexicans.
AMY GOODMAN: David Brooks, can you talk about the role of U.S. consultants in Mexico, specifically Dick Morris?
DAVID BROOKS: I mean, the campaign of Felipe Calderon became much more successful once it went negative and it started borrowing U.S.-style fear campaign tactics and negative campaigning. Dick Morris was one of the informal consultants. He claims that he was never hired and wasn't full-time, but that he has said and admitted that he did have informal consultations with the Calderon campaign.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, Dick Morris being the former --
DAVID BROOKS: Strategist for Bill Clinton, who then had to leave the public scene in disgrace and now is a Rupert Murdoch columnist, for Rupert Murdoch media. Part of what he contributed, as well as what operatives from the Aznar government, the ex-Prime Minister of Spain, Aznar, and other people to the campaign was to create a sense of fear about the possible -- because, actually projecting Lopez Obrador as a danger to Mexico, as a danger to the United States, as somebody who would be akin to a Hugo Chavez on our border.
AMY GOODMAN: Not only akin, I was looking at a magazine from Mexico that had a chessboard with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro beings the players and they’re holding the pawn, who is Lopez Obrador.
DAVID BROOKS: And the campaign also projected him as somebody who violates the law, who disregards the laws.
AMY GOODMAN: As Professor Grayson was saying.
DAVID BROOKS: Right, and part of that became the media campaign of saying this person is dangerous, doesn't respect the law, is willing to go to the streets and provoke violence and confront things. And all this -- up to the end of the campaign people were getting messages on their phones, as well as emails from the Calderon campaign, saying that if Lopez Obrador won you might lose your car, you might lose your business and you might lose even the right to practice your Catholic religion. And so, it intensified.
This did have an effect and did close the polls and did polarize the election to a point, and that media campaign is now proceeding after the election, where most of Mexico's mainstream media, as well as the two monopoly television stations, have been projecting Calderon and giving a sense that he has won. There is no official result. The Federal Electoral Institute has said that the preliminary vote cannot be an indicator of who won or who lost, etc., etc.
That media campaign has now crossed the border. And just yesterday, the L.A. Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, all published editorials basically repeating some of the claims of Lopez Obrador as a danger, basically proclaiming that, in their view, Calderon has won the election, and saying that that's a good thing for Mexico and for the United States. Because, again, as the L.A. Times editorial subtitle says, editorial standoff reveals a populous candidate with undemocratic leanings. And they make this accusation because he proclaimed victory late Sunday night, but they failed to mention that the PAN was the first to proclaim victory and that Felipe Calderon, a few minutes after Andres Manuel said this, he said the same thing. So essentially what we have is this whole media campaign, very similar to what we've seen in this country, where the fight now is to use the media and use all the tools possible to proclaim yourself a winner without a basis in any of the facts.
So what's happening, as well, and what I think the key is in Mexico is not what the fight is between Lopez Obrador and Felipe Calderon, but what about the people? And supposedly they're supposed to be the protagonists of this great democratic expression, and that's what's being violated right now. And that's what the fury is and the ire and the anger of people. Neither of these two candidates can claim to now represent the majority of Mexico. And so one of the questions is how is Mexico going to define how to proceed, and the protagonist can’t be the candidates. The protagonist has to be the popular will. At least that's what we're told in a democracy.
And the other factor there is, of course, that the U.S. has been very careful, the U.S. government has been very careful not to openly participate in this election, which is a wise thing to do. But it's no secret that the Bush administration, that Wall Street and, of course, the major media in this country favor Felipe Calderon, and that is also creating an issue of be careful what you read in the editorials, although the reports in most of these papers contradict the editorial.
AMY GOODMAN: John Ross, from your vantage point in Mexico City and your years of writing on this issue, the Zapatistas, where does the whole movement fit into this? This week, Subcomandante Marcos was in a radio studio also alleging fraud.
JOHN ROSS: Yeah. I -- you know, I've written a lot on the Zapatistas. The Zapatistas are in the middle of what is called the Other Campaign. I haven’t been real happy with the Other Campaign. I think Gilberto is probably a better person to talk about the Other Campaign than I am. At this particular point, I think that the campaign has kind of -- it's kind of like a bicycle. When it doesn't go forward, it falls over, and it's kind of fallen over here in Mexico City. It pretty much limited its constituency to many young people, very much out of the mainstream of Mexican politics at this point and indeed is a contributor to the fact that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has had difficulty here, and there's been constant attacks on him by Subcomandante Marcos since the very beginning of this campaign.
I wanted to take up another thing, because I think it's important, and also to respond to Professor Grayson, who wrote a hit piece, a book that was a hit piece on Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador: this question of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador as being a violator of the law. We see statements in the New York Times by Ginger Thompson that he led violent demonstrations in Tabasco in 1996. I was with Lopez Obrador at those demonstrations in front of the PEMEX platforms. They were, in fact, nonviolent demonstrations. Just another example of how the U.S. press has turned this thing around. And, you know, here in Mexico City was accused of breaking the law because he tried to build an access road to a hospital out in Cuajimalpa in violation of a court order. They tried to bar him from the ballot. Major parties and Vicente Fox tried to bar him from the ballot. He put 1.2 million people in the streets. I was happy to march in that demonstration, the largest political demonstration in Mexico’s history, last April. And they dropped the charges right away.
The other thing is that, you know, when we say that the media has been very bad in this campaign, we have to understand that they're operating with the permission of the IFE. These hit pieces spots that ran for months and months that compared Lopez Obrador, inter-cut his face Hugo Chavez, Subcomandante Marcos, riots, lynchings, whatever you want, all these inter-cut his face, ran for months and months and months despite the objections of the PRD and of Lopez Obrador. It was only when there was a court order to have them removed that the IFE moved to remove those from the air just at the beginning of June.
Time and time again -- I think the most -- one of the most egregious errors, maybe a deliberate error, that the IFE committed during this campaign was to disenfranchise millions and millions of Mexicans north of the border by setting up a procedure where it was impossible for people, undocumented workers, in the United States to cast a ballot, although there is a law now that says they're allowed to cast that ballot. Indeed on Sunday when thousands of people caravanned out of Los Angeles down to Tijuana to vote -- and the PRD is extremely strong in Los Angeles -- they were denied to vote because there were not enough special polling places and because, as Mr. Grayson has indicated, there's only 750 ballots in each. So at every step -- and again, the bulk of those voters, millions of voters in the United States who are thought to be Lopez Obrador supporters were denied the ballot because of IFE procedures.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Grayson, your response?
GEORGE GRAYSON: First of all, IFE wasn't enthusiastic about having the vote abroad. It was legislation passed by the Mexican Congress, which is elected, and I agree that the Mexican Congress is no model of efficiency. It does much better at blocking bills than passing them. But IFE simply had to abide by the guidelines, and the guidelines required expatriates to have to register in January, and so that meant that you were going to have a very small registration, only about 41,000 sought ballots, and maybe 32 or 33 thousand actually voted. Turns out, the overwhelming number of people who voted from abroad voted for Calderon, although one can assume that was a largely middle-class vote.
With regard to the 1988 election, I was here for that one also, and undoubtedly the fraud was ubiquitous. But there wasn't much violence after that election, mainly because the loser, Cuauhtémoc Cardenas, who's run three times for president of Mexico unsuccessfully and is kind of an icon of the Mexican left and who did not support Lopez Obrador in this campaign, the election was in early July, I think July 6, as I recall, and about two months later he went into the Zocalo and made a speech in which he criticized the outcome of the election. He said he had been defrauded of the presidency, although, of course, the ballots were impounded, later burned, but he did not call the people to violence. There was a major split within what became the PRD at that time, and Cuahtémoc Cardenas acted in a -- I think a patriotic fashion, because he could have had a class warfare at that time.
With regard to the spots, the negative campaigning here is really rather mild compared to what it is in the United States. It's just for 71 years one party controlled the system. And the candidates didn't have to -- at least the candidates of the official party didn't have to beat up on their opponents because they were going to win anyway. And Lopez Obrador does make intemperate statements on the stump.
AMY GOODMAN: I'm going to give the last word to Gilberto Lopez Rivas. Your response and final comment.
GILBERTO LOPEZ RIVAS: I agree with a lot of commentaries that make my colleagues. And what, for me, is important is what is going to be the reaction of the people, before the fraud that is carrying out by the federal institute. That is the main questions. And we have to go into what the people is thinking and what the majority of the people is thinking. Mexico was a specialist in electoral fraud, but we believe that we have been overcome this kind of situation, and now we return again to 12 years ago, and that is very dangerous today. It’s completely dangerous. I think that if the tribunal, the electoral tribunal, that is the body that has to say who is the next president, doesn't take in account what is happening in the federal institute, this is going to be kind of riot in Mexico.
AMY GOODMAN: We'll leave it there, and we’ll certainly continue to follow the story of the Mexico elections. I want to thank you, Gilberto Lopez Rivas, for joining us, anthropologist with the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico City; David Brooks here in New York, of La Jornada; John Ross who writes for The Nation and writes independently, a number of books, among them Rebellion from the Roots and The Annexation of Mexico; and Professor George Grayson of the College of William and Mary. I want to thank you all for being with us.
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Monday, July 03, 2006
An Open Letter to Supporters from Peter Miguel Camejo
http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/2006/07/open-letter-to-supporters-from-peter.html
To: Votecamejo@topica.com
From: "Rachel Odes" Email: rachelodes@gmail.com
Subject: CAMEJO LIST: Open Letter to Supporters from Peter Camejo
Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 16:34:46 +0000
An Open Letter to Supporters from Peter Miguel Camejo
(June 16, 2006)
Dear Supporters,
In the recent June 6th California Primary, the Green Party received an amazing surprise.
Our candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction, Sarah Knopp, received the largest statewide vote EVER for a Green in California, more than a HALF MILLION VOTES (570,000, or 17.3% of the total vote). Sarah finished second, defeating the Republican-endorsed candidate and several other candidates, and missed, by just 2 percent, forcing the incumbent into a runoff. Because of this surprise, the immediate impact will be that Sarah will gain important respect within her union, the California Teachers Association, and position her to represent us on the issue of education.
In the contested Green U.S. Senate Primary, Todd Chretien was elected. We want to congratulate his two opponents for their strong showing in what turned into a real three way contest for the right to meet pro-war incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein in November.
So, now, we are putting together a very strong team to build our gubernatorial campaign and our Million Votes for Peace statewide slate.
A GIANT AWAKENS
As we move past the Primary one factor is going to help us get an increased hearing for our platform: The new mass civil rights movement that has awoken in the Latino community.
On May 1, 2006 we had the largest demonstrations in the history of the United States. These demonstrations were of working people, many of them among the poorest people in our nation. They were organized in most cases by grass roots formations. In some areas Greens are participating in the broad coalitions that helped organize the mass rallies. At the rally in San Francisco that had at least one hundred thousand participants, I spoke as well as Greens Matt Gonzalez and Todd Chretien.
In Los Angeles, at a rally of possibly a half million or more, Nativo Lopez, President of the Mexican American Political Association and an out spoken Green and strong supporter of Todd’s campaign and mine, not only addressed the crowd, but has emerged as one of the key leaders of
this new movement nationally. Sarah Knopp, our surprise candidate, was also a guest speaker, and helped lead the March 25th coalition. When I spoke at the rally in San Francisco, I listed some of the key points in my campaign. And near the end of my presentation, I talked about the case of Santos Reyes, who is doing 26 years to life in prison for cheating on a DMV test. I asked the immense crowd to raise their hand to ask the Governor to free Santos Reyes. The response was massive with shouts as their hands rose. I then called out “not one hand let us raise both hands!” A roar broke out as people spontaneously raised both hands and shouted “libertad, libertad, libertad for Santos.” My speech was all in Spanish. When I finished we played a short message from Santos Reyes.
It is an interesting fact that the Green Party - in the middle of this massive new battle around the issue of immigration - has the only Latino and Spanish speaking candidate for governor. And, it opens up a great opportunity because we support a policy of full legalization, which is what the majority in the Latino community wants. The Republicans want criminalzation, discrimination and deportation, and the Democrats want an apartheid system of guest workers under separate and exploitive laws that will include deportations, work in only minimum wage jobs along with various denials of human rights.
While many will want to vote for us they will feel the pressure to accept voting against what they believe in because of our spoiler system winner take all with no run off. For people originally from Mexico this can be a shock because this conflict does not exist in their country where proportional representation is used.
We cannot be sure what our vote in the Latino Community will be. It was only 1% in 1998. With my first campaign as a Latino it rose to 8% in 2002 and then dropped to 5% in 2003 (in 2003 Cruz Bustamante, a Latino, was the Democratic gubernatorial candidate and yet we still retained a
5% support level.) If we can effectively reach out this year it is possible we could receive a very positive response from the Latino community.
NEW BOOK ‘CALIFORNIA UNDER CORPORATE RULE’ AVAILABLE
Our new book, “California Under Corporate Rule,” is now out. At our very first meeting with the book 25 copies were sold to an audience of 40. In Los Angeles at a meeting sponsored by the ACLU and some unions we sold about 25 copies to audience of about 100. Having a book that outlines in some details many of the major issues of our campaign in a popularized style will enhance the impact of the campaign and win new supporters to our party. We will use the book as a way to promote the campaign.
PHIL ANGELIDES BORROWS FROM US
As the primary campaign ends some of the points I have raised now in three campaigns for governor are being picked up by Phil Angelides. He is even using virtually the same words I have used for a fair tax. He refers to having people “pay their fair share. “ We should be glad to see this happen. It is troubling, however, that he ran a TV ad saying he is the only gubernatorial candidate calling for taxing the rich and corporations.
However, and most importantly, the impact of our focus to expose theregressive nature of taxation and how easy it is to fix our budget is finally being accepted to some extent.
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* THIS LETTER IS TOO LONG - BUT, PLEASE READ ON *
I know this letter is much too long, but permit me, on the following pages, to provide you a feel of the kind of issues we are going to raise from now to November by outlining what the Dems and Reps have done to California and what we would do.
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WHAT THE DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS
HAVE DONE TO CALIFORNIA
§ California is the 48th state in school test scores!
§ California is next to last 49th having the largest class size.
§ California spends 600 dollars per student less than the national average. It used to spend 600 dollars more!
§ One percent of Californians has more income than sixty percent and the lowest State and local tax rate!
§ California taxes the bottom 20 percent at a 57 percent higher rate than the top 1 percent!
§ Taxes on California’s corporations have dropped 40 percent in the last 20 years.
§ Fifty two percent of all profitable corporations pay no taxes!
§ For 35 years 90 percent of Californians have had no inflation-adjusted increase in pay!
§ The poorest have had the minimum wage cut from $9.40 (in today’s dollars) an hour in 1968 to the present level of $6.75!
§ In 2005 the non partisan Government Performance Project rated California as the worst state, tied with lowly Alabama.
§ California is dead last in the ratio of counselors to students.
§ California is dead last in the ratio of librarians to students. The average is 1 per 900 in the country. In California it is 1 per 4,800!
§ California is dead last in traffic congestion and 48th on road conditions.
§ California is the 49th state in home ownership!
§ The State limits at 1/2 percent the amount of energy that can be generated from solar.
ALL THIS HAPPENED WHILE OUR ECONOMY MORE THAN DOUBLED!
The people of California have the right to know the truth and the real solutions to what is happening in their state and what we would do.
AS GOVERNOR, THIS IS WHAT I WOULD DO:
§ Establish a fair tax where the richest - those earning 200,000 or more a year (about 5 percent) - would pay the same tax rate the poorest people pay, INCREASING the state income $10 billion a year.
§ Bring universal health care to California by establishing single payer care as outlined in Senator Sheila Kuehl’s legislation, SB 840. According to the Lewin Report, single payer healthcare will SAVE the public $7.8 billion the first year and $343 billion in 10 years.
§ Raise the minimum wage to at least what it was in 1968, $9.40 an hour (in today’s dollars), INCREASING the state income $3 billion a year.
§ Return corporate taxes to what they were 20 years ago, INCREASING state income $5 billion a year.
§ Stop tax fraud and close loop holes for corporate and the rich, INCREASING state income $7 billion a year (based on IRS estimates; see our book on California).
WITH THESE EXTRA FUNDS AMONG THINGS I WOULD DO ARE:
§ Cut taxes on the bottom 60 percent of our people by $4 billion a year.
§ Make a zero tax revenue shift in property taxes by lowering homeowner taxes and increase Prop. 13 under valued corporate properties. We willgrandfather people over 55 so they can move without any increase in their homeowner taxes.
§ Begin emergency improvement of our levees and other projects, but also launch a 2 year study by a non-partisan group of professionals, labor, business, environmentalists and NGOs to develop a comprehensive, long-term 25 year infrastructure plan with mass transportation for
California.
Estimated cost: $4 billion a year.
§ Launch a crash program for alternative energy, including developing new technologies with an annual state subsidy of $3 billion, 13 times what is proposed by the Dems and Reps at present.
§ Establish assumable home equity loans to finance solar energy. Eliminate any limit on the amount of solar energy California can have. The cost for doing this is zero.
§ Launch a program for more affordable housing. Cost of $2 billion per year.
§ Develop a program like New Zealand, which has produced nearly 100 percent home ownership by helping with the down payment for first time home buyers. Zero impact on budget. Funding can be maintained by a rotating revenue municipal serial bond.
§ Increase allocation for education up to $8 billion a year, while cutting the number of over paid administrators. Shift allocation to teachers to what it was more than 40 years ago. That increases what goes to pay teachers and improving our school buildings and reducing class size.
OTHER OBJECTIVES
Even with all of these achievements, we would still have about $4 billion a year left over to build a reserve fund for emergencies in the state of California, to pay off debts and to fully-fund our pension funds, and also put forth the following objectives that are necessary to
benefit all of the people of our state:
§ Oppose the continued illegal, needless and counter productive war and occupation in Iraq. Bring our National Guard troops home.
§ Stop cutting our ancient forests.
§ Establish public funding of elections.
§ Establish IRV (instant run off voting) and proportional representation.
§ Abolish the death penalty and three strikes.
§ Review all cases of prisoners serving life sentences for minor nonviolent crimes with the intent to free them.
§ Free Santos Reyes who is serving 26 years to life for cheating on a DMV test.
§ Protect our bill of rights, the right to religion, assembly and petition and defend the first, fourth, and eighth amendment of our federal constitution openly violated today by the Democrats and Republicans.
§ End racial profiling. Protect the rights of our Muslim community.
§ Protect women’s right to choose. Promote contraception and safe sex in our educational system and to the public.
§ Maintain the constitutional separation of church and state. Govern based on facts not faith.
§ Assure equality for all including the right to marriage for gays and lesbians.
§ Reform our pension laws to protect the rights of shareholders. That is democratizing our pension funds. Prevent corporate management abuses or political raids of our pensions. Surpluses must be saved to protect future obligations.
§ Protect the right of labor to unionize. End apartheid policies for all working people in California. Establish driver licenses and full legal rights of labor laws for all working people living in California.
§ Reform our immigration policies, legalize those already here and fight to set a legalized immigration level from Mexico of one person per hundred Californians every four years. End the “Exclude Mexicans” laws perpetrated by the Democratic and Republican parties.
WONDERFUL NEWS
This campaign is underway while some major events are putting wind behind our sails in California, nationally and internationally. So often our movement is informing you of terrible things that are happening and asking for your support in our efforts to stop, or at least protest,
these events.
This letter is asking you to support our campaign because of the many new developments both here and abroad that are amazing and wonderful.
From Venezuela to Argentina, Progressives Are On the Rise.
Latin America is seeing a shift to more progressive candidates. In country after country, the people are rejecting the usual two parties sponsored by corporations in favor of new forces challenging them in the name of the people. It is inevitable that this new wave of progressivism, something unseen for over thirty years, will begin to have an impact inside the United States.
Americans Now Oppose the War in Iraq
Recent polls show the majority of Americans have now joined the world and oppose the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Suddenly, on the single most important issue of the 2006 elections, the Green Party - and not the Democratic or Republican parties - stands with the majority in our nation against the two pro-war corporate parties.
Democratic Party VS Rank and File
The Democrats in the Congress and Senate gave George Bush 28 standing ovations at the state of the union address, but the rank and file of the Democratic Party is becoming increasingly disenchanted. Polls are showing an overwhelming majority do not trust the two major parties,
favor some form of universal health care, want a moratorium on the death penalty and in many other ways are open to the platform of the Green Party.
Cindy Sheehan and Barbara Becnel
Cindy Sheehan has stated publicly that she voted for Kerry and now believes it was a mistake. As a Democrat she refuses to vote for her party’s candidates if they continue to support the war in Iraq. Because of this she has urged people in California to look at Todd Chretien’s Green Party campaign for U.S. Senate instead of Diane Feinstein.
One of the most amazing and wonderful new developments was the gubernatorial campaign in the Democratic Party primary of an African American woman, Barbara Becnel. A central leader of the anti-death penalty movement, she has publicly stated that she will not vote for a
candidate or Party that is for the death penalty.
The majority of rank and file Democrats agree with Barbara Becnel on issue after issue. Her campaign brought together a small but symbolic rebellion within the ranks of the Democratic Party. We extend our hand in solidarity to Barbara and Cindy, two women who are changing America on many issues, in part by introducing the very principle upon which the Green Party is founded: Vote for what you believe in. Stop voting against yourself!!
THE GREEN PARTY MUST ACT NOW
We must build a party which truly reflects the values of the rapidly growing number of people who are dissatisfied with the Democratic Party.
This year is a critical moment to have the most effective Green Party campaign possible for Governor and all the other statewide races. We have a tremendous slate of candidates. In addition to my campaign for Governor and Todd Chretien’s campaign for U.S., the slate includes Donna
Warren, Lieutenant Governor; Forrest Hill, Secretary of State; Mike Wyman, Attorney General; Larry Cafiero, Insurance Commissioner and Mehul Thakker, Treasurer. We need to reach out to people alienated by the corporate-run parties and help them to join us and build the Green Party.
CAN WE GET A HEARING IN 2006?
The televised debates are a primary focus of our campaign
Our campaign will have a real impact in California especially if I can get in the debates again. Your assistance will make it possible to hire staff and produce materials to mount the kind of effort that will help me get invited to those debates. We need that help now. It is quite possible because of my name recognition and previous participation I can make it into the televised debates and get the truth to millions of voters.
WE’RE LAUNCHING A PAID TELEVISION CAMPAIGN!
In an effort to increase my visibility, increase the chances of being invited to the debates and generally expose the Green Party platform to the general public, we are planning to LAUNCH A TELEVISION CAMPAIGN - the first such campaign in the history of the Green Party. According to our communication director, this campaign will give us a level of exposure to propel my candidacy dramatically forward.
We need your help to make this special program work. We are asking supporters to donate $500 (or more, the maximum donation is $22,300) to a SPECIAL FUND reserved just for television ads. Mark on your check “TV Ads” and it will be used only for this.
We are at a turning point with a great potential to win new members among Latinos, African Americans, youth and working people that can begin to transform us into a party of the people. With Donna Warren for Lt. Governor as my running mate, our campaign will have a Latino and an African American leading our slate, and I am convinced this can win us many new supporters.
Finally, I am running to help all our Green candidates throughout California from the governor’s race to local city council races. As mentioned with assistance from some of the 2006 slate of Greens for statewide office, I have prepared a book entitled CALIFORNIA with a sub-title “Under Corporate Rule.”The book outlines the basic facts, statistics and issues about the state of California, as well as offering SOLUTIONS that will help our candidates in their campaigns.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
To do all of this work we need your help. We need volunteers who will table, hand out leaflets, and make telephone calls. We need you to put a bumper sticker on your car, sign in your yard and help set up local campaign committees in your community or work place.
To organize an effective statewide campaign that will assist our local candidates and win the minds and hearts of thousands if not millions to our party does not take much money. But we do need financial help. We need to print our basic materials, develop our web sites and have a small staff to coordinate volunteers. Compare our expenditures to the millions spent by Schwarzenegger and the leading Democrats, and you will see how modest the cost of an effective, non-corporate, grassroots Green campaign can be. A test fundraising letter in April resulted in an average $100 contribution to our progressive campaign. If you possibly can afford it please match that. Depending on the size of your donation, we’ll send you a free copy of “California” ($14.95 on Amazon.com) and several other books. (See details below).
Please Help Fund A Million Votes for Peace
Because of the spread between the two corporate candidates in the Senate race against Diane Feinstein, there is little to no spoiler issue. So, it is quite possible that the largest vote ever for a Green in a state race will be registered in November. We believe we can achieve a million votes for peace for Todd Chretien in the Senate race. We are calling our statewide Green Party 2006 campaign the MVP (Million Votes for Peace)campaign.
As I have previously stated this is the last time I will run for office. I want to make this the best and most successful campaign our Party has ever had. I see many new young candidates developing into the future representatives of our party such, including Aimee Allison in Oakland, Gayle McLaughlin in Richmond, Renee Saucedo in San Francisco, Pat Gray in San Mateo and let’s not forget Matt Gonzalez as well as many, many others.
We are about to make history. A million votes for Todd will be international news. It will give people new courage to organize and fight for peace.
Si Se Puede
This appeal letter is going out to more than 5,000 of our supporters who have contributed in the past. The maximum donation allowed by law is $22,000 per person. But if we could average just $100 per supporter, and receive an above normal contribution rate it would give us the funding
we need.
Please join us in making a pledge to give now or help raise $100 or more for our campaign. Any size donation is welcome. I thank you for your previous support and for joining us in our efforts in 2006.
In Solidarity,
Peter Miguel Camejo
P.S. We have three FREE books we will send you for free depending on your contribution. For a $25 contribution you will receive the book “CALIFORNIA.” For $100 you will also receive “DARE TO HOPE,” a book written by Jason West, the 28 year old Green Party mayor of New Paltz, New York who led the battle for Gay Marriage on the East Coast. And for contributions of $150 or more, you will receive a third book entitled “INDEPENDENT POLITICS THE GREEN PARTY STRATEGIC DEBATE,” providing documents and discussion pieces of the internal debate with in the Green Party.
P.P.S. Please check our website – www.VoteCamejo.com – for news and updates, as well as information on how you can join the campaign by donating, volunteering, hosting events, or just putting a bumper sticker on your car. Thank you.
Paid for by Camejo for Governor
FPPC #1281665
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This email was sent to: sacranative@yahoo.com
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http://www.votecamejo.com/index.html
Camejo's Five Point Plan
Peter Miguel Camejo has presented a five point plan to increase the state of California’s revenues by 32.6 billion dollars a year while lowering taxes for 60% of our people.
He will ask Steve Westly, Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Barbara Becnel for a one to one meeting to urge them to support his plan that makes it possible to solve all the major issues of our state, improve education, stop all cut backs of needed social programs, plan and rebuild our infrastructure, start a massive march for alternative energy and to lower the excessive taxes on the average citizen.
Here is the plan:
FIVE POINT PROGRAM TO INCREASE REVENUES BY 32 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR
1. THE RICHEST 5% SHOULD PAY THE SAME TAX RATE THE POOREST 20% PAY. ADDS 10 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.
2. ESTABLISH SINGLE PAYER UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE. ADDS 7.6 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR*
3. STOP ALL LOOP HOLES AND TAX FRAUD. ADDS 7 BILLION A YEAR.
4. RETURN CORPORATE TAXES TO WHAT THEY WERE 20 YEARS AGO. ADDS 5 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.
5. RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE TO WHAT IT WAS IN 1968. ADDS 3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.
THIS FIVE POINT PROGRAM ADDS 25 BILLION DOLLARS TO OUR BUDGET IN CALIFORNIA.
*Savings for individual Californians, not in the budget (Lewin Study)
Click here for a more detailed explanation of the plan.
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http://www.votecamejo.com/contact.html
Contact
Our mailing address is:
Camejo for Governor
1710 Broadway #122
Sacramento CA 95818
Our phone number is:
1 (888) LEAVEIRAQ or 1 (888) 532-8347
Our email is:
info@votecamejo.com
Please call Cres Vellucci, press secretary, at (916) 996-9170 to request interviews with Peter Camejo.
More Emails:
votecamejo@topica.com
rachelodes@gmail.com
If you have questions or corrections for the website, please email Mitchell Smith at:
websmith2006@aol.com
c/s
To: Votecamejo@topica.com
From: "Rachel Odes" Email: rachelodes@gmail.com
Subject: CAMEJO LIST: Open Letter to Supporters from Peter Camejo
Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 16:34:46 +0000
An Open Letter to Supporters from Peter Miguel Camejo
(June 16, 2006)
Dear Supporters,
In the recent June 6th California Primary, the Green Party received an amazing surprise.
Our candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction, Sarah Knopp, received the largest statewide vote EVER for a Green in California, more than a HALF MILLION VOTES (570,000, or 17.3% of the total vote). Sarah finished second, defeating the Republican-endorsed candidate and several other candidates, and missed, by just 2 percent, forcing the incumbent into a runoff. Because of this surprise, the immediate impact will be that Sarah will gain important respect within her union, the California Teachers Association, and position her to represent us on the issue of education.
In the contested Green U.S. Senate Primary, Todd Chretien was elected. We want to congratulate his two opponents for their strong showing in what turned into a real three way contest for the right to meet pro-war incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein in November.
So, now, we are putting together a very strong team to build our gubernatorial campaign and our Million Votes for Peace statewide slate.
A GIANT AWAKENS
As we move past the Primary one factor is going to help us get an increased hearing for our platform: The new mass civil rights movement that has awoken in the Latino community.
On May 1, 2006 we had the largest demonstrations in the history of the United States. These demonstrations were of working people, many of them among the poorest people in our nation. They were organized in most cases by grass roots formations. In some areas Greens are participating in the broad coalitions that helped organize the mass rallies. At the rally in San Francisco that had at least one hundred thousand participants, I spoke as well as Greens Matt Gonzalez and Todd Chretien.
In Los Angeles, at a rally of possibly a half million or more, Nativo Lopez, President of the Mexican American Political Association and an out spoken Green and strong supporter of Todd’s campaign and mine, not only addressed the crowd, but has emerged as one of the key leaders of
this new movement nationally. Sarah Knopp, our surprise candidate, was also a guest speaker, and helped lead the March 25th coalition. When I spoke at the rally in San Francisco, I listed some of the key points in my campaign. And near the end of my presentation, I talked about the case of Santos Reyes, who is doing 26 years to life in prison for cheating on a DMV test. I asked the immense crowd to raise their hand to ask the Governor to free Santos Reyes. The response was massive with shouts as their hands rose. I then called out “not one hand let us raise both hands!” A roar broke out as people spontaneously raised both hands and shouted “libertad, libertad, libertad for Santos.” My speech was all in Spanish. When I finished we played a short message from Santos Reyes.
It is an interesting fact that the Green Party - in the middle of this massive new battle around the issue of immigration - has the only Latino and Spanish speaking candidate for governor. And, it opens up a great opportunity because we support a policy of full legalization, which is what the majority in the Latino community wants. The Republicans want criminalzation, discrimination and deportation, and the Democrats want an apartheid system of guest workers under separate and exploitive laws that will include deportations, work in only minimum wage jobs along with various denials of human rights.
While many will want to vote for us they will feel the pressure to accept voting against what they believe in because of our spoiler system winner take all with no run off. For people originally from Mexico this can be a shock because this conflict does not exist in their country where proportional representation is used.
We cannot be sure what our vote in the Latino Community will be. It was only 1% in 1998. With my first campaign as a Latino it rose to 8% in 2002 and then dropped to 5% in 2003 (in 2003 Cruz Bustamante, a Latino, was the Democratic gubernatorial candidate and yet we still retained a
5% support level.) If we can effectively reach out this year it is possible we could receive a very positive response from the Latino community.
NEW BOOK ‘CALIFORNIA UNDER CORPORATE RULE’ AVAILABLE
Our new book, “California Under Corporate Rule,” is now out. At our very first meeting with the book 25 copies were sold to an audience of 40. In Los Angeles at a meeting sponsored by the ACLU and some unions we sold about 25 copies to audience of about 100. Having a book that outlines in some details many of the major issues of our campaign in a popularized style will enhance the impact of the campaign and win new supporters to our party. We will use the book as a way to promote the campaign.
PHIL ANGELIDES BORROWS FROM US
As the primary campaign ends some of the points I have raised now in three campaigns for governor are being picked up by Phil Angelides. He is even using virtually the same words I have used for a fair tax. He refers to having people “pay their fair share. “ We should be glad to see this happen. It is troubling, however, that he ran a TV ad saying he is the only gubernatorial candidate calling for taxing the rich and corporations.
However, and most importantly, the impact of our focus to expose theregressive nature of taxation and how easy it is to fix our budget is finally being accepted to some extent.
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* THIS LETTER IS TOO LONG - BUT, PLEASE READ ON *
I know this letter is much too long, but permit me, on the following pages, to provide you a feel of the kind of issues we are going to raise from now to November by outlining what the Dems and Reps have done to California and what we would do.
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WHAT THE DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS
HAVE DONE TO CALIFORNIA
§ California is the 48th state in school test scores!
§ California is next to last 49th having the largest class size.
§ California spends 600 dollars per student less than the national average. It used to spend 600 dollars more!
§ One percent of Californians has more income than sixty percent and the lowest State and local tax rate!
§ California taxes the bottom 20 percent at a 57 percent higher rate than the top 1 percent!
§ Taxes on California’s corporations have dropped 40 percent in the last 20 years.
§ Fifty two percent of all profitable corporations pay no taxes!
§ For 35 years 90 percent of Californians have had no inflation-adjusted increase in pay!
§ The poorest have had the minimum wage cut from $9.40 (in today’s dollars) an hour in 1968 to the present level of $6.75!
§ In 2005 the non partisan Government Performance Project rated California as the worst state, tied with lowly Alabama.
§ California is dead last in the ratio of counselors to students.
§ California is dead last in the ratio of librarians to students. The average is 1 per 900 in the country. In California it is 1 per 4,800!
§ California is dead last in traffic congestion and 48th on road conditions.
§ California is the 49th state in home ownership!
§ The State limits at 1/2 percent the amount of energy that can be generated from solar.
ALL THIS HAPPENED WHILE OUR ECONOMY MORE THAN DOUBLED!
The people of California have the right to know the truth and the real solutions to what is happening in their state and what we would do.
AS GOVERNOR, THIS IS WHAT I WOULD DO:
§ Establish a fair tax where the richest - those earning 200,000 or more a year (about 5 percent) - would pay the same tax rate the poorest people pay, INCREASING the state income $10 billion a year.
§ Bring universal health care to California by establishing single payer care as outlined in Senator Sheila Kuehl’s legislation, SB 840. According to the Lewin Report, single payer healthcare will SAVE the public $7.8 billion the first year and $343 billion in 10 years.
§ Raise the minimum wage to at least what it was in 1968, $9.40 an hour (in today’s dollars), INCREASING the state income $3 billion a year.
§ Return corporate taxes to what they were 20 years ago, INCREASING state income $5 billion a year.
§ Stop tax fraud and close loop holes for corporate and the rich, INCREASING state income $7 billion a year (based on IRS estimates; see our book on California).
WITH THESE EXTRA FUNDS AMONG THINGS I WOULD DO ARE:
§ Cut taxes on the bottom 60 percent of our people by $4 billion a year.
§ Make a zero tax revenue shift in property taxes by lowering homeowner taxes and increase Prop. 13 under valued corporate properties. We willgrandfather people over 55 so they can move without any increase in their homeowner taxes.
§ Begin emergency improvement of our levees and other projects, but also launch a 2 year study by a non-partisan group of professionals, labor, business, environmentalists and NGOs to develop a comprehensive, long-term 25 year infrastructure plan with mass transportation for
California.
Estimated cost: $4 billion a year.
§ Launch a crash program for alternative energy, including developing new technologies with an annual state subsidy of $3 billion, 13 times what is proposed by the Dems and Reps at present.
§ Establish assumable home equity loans to finance solar energy. Eliminate any limit on the amount of solar energy California can have. The cost for doing this is zero.
§ Launch a program for more affordable housing. Cost of $2 billion per year.
§ Develop a program like New Zealand, which has produced nearly 100 percent home ownership by helping with the down payment for first time home buyers. Zero impact on budget. Funding can be maintained by a rotating revenue municipal serial bond.
§ Increase allocation for education up to $8 billion a year, while cutting the number of over paid administrators. Shift allocation to teachers to what it was more than 40 years ago. That increases what goes to pay teachers and improving our school buildings and reducing class size.
OTHER OBJECTIVES
Even with all of these achievements, we would still have about $4 billion a year left over to build a reserve fund for emergencies in the state of California, to pay off debts and to fully-fund our pension funds, and also put forth the following objectives that are necessary to
benefit all of the people of our state:
§ Oppose the continued illegal, needless and counter productive war and occupation in Iraq. Bring our National Guard troops home.
§ Stop cutting our ancient forests.
§ Establish public funding of elections.
§ Establish IRV (instant run off voting) and proportional representation.
§ Abolish the death penalty and three strikes.
§ Review all cases of prisoners serving life sentences for minor nonviolent crimes with the intent to free them.
§ Free Santos Reyes who is serving 26 years to life for cheating on a DMV test.
§ Protect our bill of rights, the right to religion, assembly and petition and defend the first, fourth, and eighth amendment of our federal constitution openly violated today by the Democrats and Republicans.
§ End racial profiling. Protect the rights of our Muslim community.
§ Protect women’s right to choose. Promote contraception and safe sex in our educational system and to the public.
§ Maintain the constitutional separation of church and state. Govern based on facts not faith.
§ Assure equality for all including the right to marriage for gays and lesbians.
§ Reform our pension laws to protect the rights of shareholders. That is democratizing our pension funds. Prevent corporate management abuses or political raids of our pensions. Surpluses must be saved to protect future obligations.
§ Protect the right of labor to unionize. End apartheid policies for all working people in California. Establish driver licenses and full legal rights of labor laws for all working people living in California.
§ Reform our immigration policies, legalize those already here and fight to set a legalized immigration level from Mexico of one person per hundred Californians every four years. End the “Exclude Mexicans” laws perpetrated by the Democratic and Republican parties.
WONDERFUL NEWS
This campaign is underway while some major events are putting wind behind our sails in California, nationally and internationally. So often our movement is informing you of terrible things that are happening and asking for your support in our efforts to stop, or at least protest,
these events.
This letter is asking you to support our campaign because of the many new developments both here and abroad that are amazing and wonderful.
From Venezuela to Argentina, Progressives Are On the Rise.
Latin America is seeing a shift to more progressive candidates. In country after country, the people are rejecting the usual two parties sponsored by corporations in favor of new forces challenging them in the name of the people. It is inevitable that this new wave of progressivism, something unseen for over thirty years, will begin to have an impact inside the United States.
Americans Now Oppose the War in Iraq
Recent polls show the majority of Americans have now joined the world and oppose the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Suddenly, on the single most important issue of the 2006 elections, the Green Party - and not the Democratic or Republican parties - stands with the majority in our nation against the two pro-war corporate parties.
Democratic Party VS Rank and File
The Democrats in the Congress and Senate gave George Bush 28 standing ovations at the state of the union address, but the rank and file of the Democratic Party is becoming increasingly disenchanted. Polls are showing an overwhelming majority do not trust the two major parties,
favor some form of universal health care, want a moratorium on the death penalty and in many other ways are open to the platform of the Green Party.
Cindy Sheehan and Barbara Becnel
Cindy Sheehan has stated publicly that she voted for Kerry and now believes it was a mistake. As a Democrat she refuses to vote for her party’s candidates if they continue to support the war in Iraq. Because of this she has urged people in California to look at Todd Chretien’s Green Party campaign for U.S. Senate instead of Diane Feinstein.
One of the most amazing and wonderful new developments was the gubernatorial campaign in the Democratic Party primary of an African American woman, Barbara Becnel. A central leader of the anti-death penalty movement, she has publicly stated that she will not vote for a
candidate or Party that is for the death penalty.
The majority of rank and file Democrats agree with Barbara Becnel on issue after issue. Her campaign brought together a small but symbolic rebellion within the ranks of the Democratic Party. We extend our hand in solidarity to Barbara and Cindy, two women who are changing America on many issues, in part by introducing the very principle upon which the Green Party is founded: Vote for what you believe in. Stop voting against yourself!!
THE GREEN PARTY MUST ACT NOW
We must build a party which truly reflects the values of the rapidly growing number of people who are dissatisfied with the Democratic Party.
This year is a critical moment to have the most effective Green Party campaign possible for Governor and all the other statewide races. We have a tremendous slate of candidates. In addition to my campaign for Governor and Todd Chretien’s campaign for U.S., the slate includes Donna
Warren, Lieutenant Governor; Forrest Hill, Secretary of State; Mike Wyman, Attorney General; Larry Cafiero, Insurance Commissioner and Mehul Thakker, Treasurer. We need to reach out to people alienated by the corporate-run parties and help them to join us and build the Green Party.
CAN WE GET A HEARING IN 2006?
The televised debates are a primary focus of our campaign
Our campaign will have a real impact in California especially if I can get in the debates again. Your assistance will make it possible to hire staff and produce materials to mount the kind of effort that will help me get invited to those debates. We need that help now. It is quite possible because of my name recognition and previous participation I can make it into the televised debates and get the truth to millions of voters.
WE’RE LAUNCHING A PAID TELEVISION CAMPAIGN!
In an effort to increase my visibility, increase the chances of being invited to the debates and generally expose the Green Party platform to the general public, we are planning to LAUNCH A TELEVISION CAMPAIGN - the first such campaign in the history of the Green Party. According to our communication director, this campaign will give us a level of exposure to propel my candidacy dramatically forward.
We need your help to make this special program work. We are asking supporters to donate $500 (or more, the maximum donation is $22,300) to a SPECIAL FUND reserved just for television ads. Mark on your check “TV Ads” and it will be used only for this.
We are at a turning point with a great potential to win new members among Latinos, African Americans, youth and working people that can begin to transform us into a party of the people. With Donna Warren for Lt. Governor as my running mate, our campaign will have a Latino and an African American leading our slate, and I am convinced this can win us many new supporters.
Finally, I am running to help all our Green candidates throughout California from the governor’s race to local city council races. As mentioned with assistance from some of the 2006 slate of Greens for statewide office, I have prepared a book entitled CALIFORNIA with a sub-title “Under Corporate Rule.”The book outlines the basic facts, statistics and issues about the state of California, as well as offering SOLUTIONS that will help our candidates in their campaigns.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
To do all of this work we need your help. We need volunteers who will table, hand out leaflets, and make telephone calls. We need you to put a bumper sticker on your car, sign in your yard and help set up local campaign committees in your community or work place.
To organize an effective statewide campaign that will assist our local candidates and win the minds and hearts of thousands if not millions to our party does not take much money. But we do need financial help. We need to print our basic materials, develop our web sites and have a small staff to coordinate volunteers. Compare our expenditures to the millions spent by Schwarzenegger and the leading Democrats, and you will see how modest the cost of an effective, non-corporate, grassroots Green campaign can be. A test fundraising letter in April resulted in an average $100 contribution to our progressive campaign. If you possibly can afford it please match that. Depending on the size of your donation, we’ll send you a free copy of “California” ($14.95 on Amazon.com) and several other books. (See details below).
Please Help Fund A Million Votes for Peace
Because of the spread between the two corporate candidates in the Senate race against Diane Feinstein, there is little to no spoiler issue. So, it is quite possible that the largest vote ever for a Green in a state race will be registered in November. We believe we can achieve a million votes for peace for Todd Chretien in the Senate race. We are calling our statewide Green Party 2006 campaign the MVP (Million Votes for Peace)campaign.
As I have previously stated this is the last time I will run for office. I want to make this the best and most successful campaign our Party has ever had. I see many new young candidates developing into the future representatives of our party such, including Aimee Allison in Oakland, Gayle McLaughlin in Richmond, Renee Saucedo in San Francisco, Pat Gray in San Mateo and let’s not forget Matt Gonzalez as well as many, many others.
We are about to make history. A million votes for Todd will be international news. It will give people new courage to organize and fight for peace.
Si Se Puede
This appeal letter is going out to more than 5,000 of our supporters who have contributed in the past. The maximum donation allowed by law is $22,000 per person. But if we could average just $100 per supporter, and receive an above normal contribution rate it would give us the funding
we need.
Please join us in making a pledge to give now or help raise $100 or more for our campaign. Any size donation is welcome. I thank you for your previous support and for joining us in our efforts in 2006.
In Solidarity,
Peter Miguel Camejo
P.S. We have three FREE books we will send you for free depending on your contribution. For a $25 contribution you will receive the book “CALIFORNIA.” For $100 you will also receive “DARE TO HOPE,” a book written by Jason West, the 28 year old Green Party mayor of New Paltz, New York who led the battle for Gay Marriage on the East Coast. And for contributions of $150 or more, you will receive a third book entitled “INDEPENDENT POLITICS THE GREEN PARTY STRATEGIC DEBATE,” providing documents and discussion pieces of the internal debate with in the Green Party.
P.P.S. Please check our website – www.VoteCamejo.com – for news and updates, as well as information on how you can join the campaign by donating, volunteering, hosting events, or just putting a bumper sticker on your car. Thank you.
Paid for by Camejo for Governor
FPPC #1281665
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This email was sent to: sacranative@yahoo.com
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http://www.votecamejo.com/index.html
Camejo's Five Point Plan
Peter Miguel Camejo has presented a five point plan to increase the state of California’s revenues by 32.6 billion dollars a year while lowering taxes for 60% of our people.
He will ask Steve Westly, Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Barbara Becnel for a one to one meeting to urge them to support his plan that makes it possible to solve all the major issues of our state, improve education, stop all cut backs of needed social programs, plan and rebuild our infrastructure, start a massive march for alternative energy and to lower the excessive taxes on the average citizen.
Here is the plan:
FIVE POINT PROGRAM TO INCREASE REVENUES BY 32 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR
1. THE RICHEST 5% SHOULD PAY THE SAME TAX RATE THE POOREST 20% PAY. ADDS 10 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.
2. ESTABLISH SINGLE PAYER UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE. ADDS 7.6 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR*
3. STOP ALL LOOP HOLES AND TAX FRAUD. ADDS 7 BILLION A YEAR.
4. RETURN CORPORATE TAXES TO WHAT THEY WERE 20 YEARS AGO. ADDS 5 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.
5. RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE TO WHAT IT WAS IN 1968. ADDS 3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.
THIS FIVE POINT PROGRAM ADDS 25 BILLION DOLLARS TO OUR BUDGET IN CALIFORNIA.
*Savings for individual Californians, not in the budget (Lewin Study)
Click here for a more detailed explanation of the plan.
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http://www.votecamejo.com/contact.html
Contact
Our mailing address is:
Camejo for Governor
1710 Broadway #122
Sacramento CA 95818
Our phone number is:
1 (888) LEAVEIRAQ or 1 (888) 532-8347
Our email is:
info@votecamejo.com
Please call Cres Vellucci, press secretary, at (916) 996-9170 to request interviews with Peter Camejo.
More Emails:
votecamejo@topica.com
rachelodes@gmail.com
If you have questions or corrections for the website, please email Mitchell Smith at:
websmith2006@aol.com
c/s
07-03-2006 AM News Report:
Mexico’s Close Presidential Election
http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/2006/07/07-03-2006-am-news-reportmexicos-close.html
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/03/world/americas/03elect.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
July 3, 2006: On a Peaceful Election Day Across Mexico, Growing Signs of a Maturing Democracy
By GINGER THOMPSON
MEXICO CITY, July 2 — If Mexico is a young democracy, it looked much older than its age during the uncertain presidential elections on Sunday.
Thousands of striking teachers in the southern state of Oaxaca postponed their protests to leave the polling places clear for voters. Subcommander Marcos, the ski-masked leader of the Zapatista rebels who was at the front of machete-wielding mobs just one month ago, led a peaceful march through Mexico City.
The government's Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, welcomed hundreds of observers from all over the world. The authorities estimated that more than two-thirds of registered voters would show up at the polls. And at polling places that once were scenes of huge voter fraud and intimidation, voting passed without serious disruptions or complaints. And at the end of the night, when President Vicente Fox went on national television to explain that the race was too close to call, a nation gripped by suspense and leery of dirty tricks remained calm.
"I know there is no Mexican who wants to go against democracy," Mr. Fox said after casting his ballot on Sunday. "And for that, I offer recognition to the people of Mexico who have known how to consolidate this democracy, to give it strength."
In 2000, Mr. Fox broke through the old system of fraud to become the first presidential candidate in 71 years to oust the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
Robert Pastor, a Latin America expert at American University, who has observed Mexican elections for 20 years and once helped this country come up with mechanisms for cleaning out corruption, said the situation had changed.
"Mexico created an institution a decade ago which in many ways is one of the most sophisticated in the world today," Mr. Pastor said, referring to the IFE. "They have done so much to prevent fraud, implemented all kinds of safeguards, none of which we have in the United States."
On upscale boulevards and in gritty housing projects across Mexico City, voting was a family affair. Parents filled out ballots and children stuffed them into the boxes. Voters banded together to carry elderly people who showed up in wheelchairs. When a poll worker in Polanco announced it was his mother's birthday, the whole place joined together to sing to her.
That, however, was where the affinity among voters ended.
Well-to-do voters typically said they had cast ballots for the pro-business conservative Felipe Calderón, while voters in poorer districts said they voted for the leftist populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador. José María Morera, 52, said he had decided to vote for Mr. Calderón because he worried that Mr. López Obrador "creates a situation of conflict between the social classes."
"He seems cynical, arrogant, uncultured, with no political skills," Mr. Morera said. "I do not think he's honorable."
That was not what Cuitlahuac Herrera Nolasco, a resident of Ixtapalapa, a working-class section of Mexico City, thought. "López Obrador is the only one who has shown, with acts, that he knows how to govern," Mr. Herrera said, referring to the former mayor of Mexico City, who is known for living in a modest apartment, driving a cheap car and building double-decker freeways. "To me he is the most honest. I like his austerity."
Middle class voters, like those in Ecatepec, a suburb north of Mexico City, seemed divided.
Georgina Martínez, 65, a former textile worker, was helped to the polls and to her political preferences by two sons, one a dentist and another who runs a small textile factory of his own.
They voted for Mr. Calderón, of the conservative National Action Party, PAN.
"I normally vote for the PRI," she said. "But after talking to my sons, I voted for the PAN."
Néstor Santoyo, a single father, said he voted for Mr. López Obrador of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD.
"We have already tried the other parties," Mr. Santoyo said. "Now we will try the PRD. I hope it is better than the others."
Striking teachers in Oaxaca, which is still dominated by the PRI, took a break from their protests to rally voters to support Mr. López Obrador. The teachers had been striking for months to demand higher wages.
But after the police tried to break their protests by force last month, the teachers began to demand the resignation of Gov. Ulises Ruiz. And they have accused Mr. Fox of the National Action Party of ignoring them.
In the days before the elections, there were reports in Chiapas of PRI leaders using their old tricks to get votes. Residents in the town of Zaachila said party members handed out cement and other construction supplies in an effort to buy votes.
It was unclear whether their tactics had worked.
"The vote is ultimately secret and free," said Marta Rojas Sebastián, a lifelong resident there, "so we'll take whatever they give us and then we'll vote for whomever we want."
Antonio Betancourt and Elisabeth Malkin contributed reporting from Mexico City for this article, and Mitch Carr from Oaxaca.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/03/world/americas/03cnd-mexico.html?hp&ex=1151985600&en=54a191f73704523c&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Conservative's Slim Lead in Mexico Buoys Markets =July 3, 2006
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
MEXICO CITY, July 3 — The latest uncertified results in Sunday's fiercely contested Mexican presidential election show a slim lead for the conservative candidate, Felipe Calderón.
Investors seized on the news and sharply bid up the prices of Mexican stocks and the value of its currency in early trading today. The Bolsa index gained more than 3 percent and the Mexican peso rose 9 percent against the dollar.
Election officials declared on Sunday that they could not immediately determine a winner, that certified results were days away, and that a recount was likely in the close race. The two front runners each declared victory anyway, setting in motion an electoral crisis.
The contest pitted Mr. Calderón, a conservative former energy minister backed by business leaders, primarily against Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the firebrand leftist former mayor of Mexico City, supported mostly by the poor. A third candidate, Roberto Madrazo, the former governor of Tabasco state, also received substantial support.
With 94.26 percent of the votes counted, the Federal Electoral Institute said this morning, Mr. Calderón had 36.55 percent of the count so far, and Mr. López Obrador with 35.46 percent. Mr. Madrazo trailed with 21.28 percent.
Mr. López Obrador said at a downtown hotel on Sunday that he would respect the decision of the election institute, even if he lost by one vote. Yet in the same breath, he said he was sure he had won by 500,000 votes. "This result is irreversible," he said.
Appearing before supporters a few minutes later at his party headquarters, Mr. Calderón rattled off the results of several surveys of voters as they left the polls, and the vote counts at crucial voting districts, all favoring him. "There is not the slightest doubt that we have won the election," he said.
Surveys of polling stations by election officials showed that the contest was too close to call, and they urged people to remain calm until official results could be reported.
On Sunday evening, Mr. Calderón's lead initially appeared wider, as much as three percentage points, when about 25 percent of the polling places had been counted. But as the night wore on, tension gripped the capital as it became clear that the race was razor-close.
For hours, the leading candidates remained closeted at their campaign headquarters rather than appear at the downtown hotels where they were expected to receive the results.
Luis Ugalde, the head of the Federal Electoral Institute, appeared twice on national television Sunday evening, urging the candidates and their supporters to wait for official results. President Vicente Fox also addressed the nation, pleading with voters to heed the election commission's decision. "It's the responsibility of all political actors to respect the law," he said.
But Mr. López Obrador, who critics say has an authoritarian streak, acted as if he was already the president-elect. After the electoral institute said the official results were days away, he went immediately to the historic central square, where thousands of his supporters had gathered to celebrate.
"We are going to demonstrate that we won, and they have to respect our victory," he told the crowd.
At stake in the contest is whether the country remains on a conservative track and stays a firm United States ally or joins a trend that has brought several leftists to power in Latin America in recent years, weakening Washington's influence.
"This is about the struggle between social classes," said Miguel Abel Sanchez, a 55-year-old shopkeeper, after he said he cast his vote for the leftist candidate in the rural town of San Rafael, 25 miles outside Mexico City. "We cannot live in a rich country with an enormous number of people in extreme poverty."
The election was another milestone in the country's march toward full democracy after more than seven decades of single-party, autocratic rule, which ended with the election six years ago of President Fox, who was not permitted to run for another term.
The campaign was marked by wide differences on how to handle the economy and a storm of negative advertising, as Mr. López Obrador's opponents tried to generate a high level of anxiety that his leftist populism would undo the country's democratic progress and stability.
Though Mexico has myriad problems, from rampant organized crime to environmental degradation, the election revolved around the issues of poverty and jobs, and how to close a yawning chasm between rich and poor that has sent some 10 million Mexicans north of the border in search of work since a free trade pact with the United States took hold over a decade ago.
Mr. Calderón, 43, said he would create jobs through securing more private investment and by cutting taxes. Mr. López Obrador, 52, said he would spend $20 billion on social programs and public works to jump-start the economy.
Underlying the debate was the larger issue of whether Mexico's attempt to fit into the global economy through free trade agreements had done enough to alleviate poverty. Mr. López Obrador argued that it had not and that a new economic policy to funnel more tax dollars to the poor was needed. Mr. Calderón wanted to stay the course.
Mr. López Obrador also promised to slash spending on government salaries, root out corruption and cut other waste. He attacked what he called the privileged elite in Mexico, a network of businessmen and politicians that he said for too long had evaded taxes and become rich from government contracts and the sale of state monopolies.
"There cannot be a rich government and a poor people," Mr. López Obrador said repeatedly in his campaign speeches.
Mr. Calderón warned direly that Mr. López Obrador's plan would lead to more debt and an economic collapse. He said that Mexico had to compete in the global economy and that it could triumph with his leadership. He said he would encourage more foreign investment, allow private partnerships in the state-run oil business and slash corporate taxes. "I want a winning Mexico," he said.
Mr. Madrazo, 53, carrying the banner of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or P.R.I., tried to position himself in the center, promising to crack down on crime, cut taxes and provide more direct aid to the poor.
Throughout the country, from small towns to the sprawling capital, people stood patiently in line at open-air polling places, most of them little more than fold-up tables holding voter lists, ballots and cardboard ballot boxes with cellophane sides.
The line of voters in San Rafael was a panorama of Mexico: youths in shades and leather jackets, weathered farmers in white cowboy hats, sun-hardened old ladies in straw hats, small business owners in jeans, knit shirts and loafers. About two-thirds of Mexico's 71 million voters were expected to turn out.
Some said they were voting for Mr. Calderón, of President Fox's National Action Party, to give the free-trade and pro-business policies of the government more time to work. Mr. Fox made history in 2000 when he defeated the P.R.I., but most of the reforms he promised ran aground in Congress.
"In 6 years, you cannot undo what other people have done over 70 years," said Arturo Garcia, a 49-year-old tortilla maker. "Fox was tied up by the Congress."
Some left-wing fringe groups boycotted the election. On Sunday morning, Subcommander Marcos, the masked leader of the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, marched down Reforma Avenue, the spine of Mexico City, with a few thousand supporters, heaping scorn on all the political parties. Some danced in the street and waved Communist flags.
This race was the first modern election in Mexico in which all three major candidates received equal coverage from the media and waged an American-style battle of advertisements on radio and television, from inspirational spots promising more jobs to clever mudslinging attacks.
Mexicans learned the pitfalls and advantages of negative advertising, as all sides delivered broadsides. Mr. Calderón's camp tried to paint Mr. López Obrador as a dangerous leftist and a closet dictator who would bankrupt the country with welfare programs.
Mr. López Obrador portrayed Mr. Calderón as a member of the ruling elite that has enjoyed what he called "privileges" in Mexico for centuries — government sinecures, sweetheart contracts and low taxes.
All three major candidates refrained from bashing the United States or making naked appeals to nationalism, which used to be a mainstay in political campaigns here. Though Mr. Calderón and Mr. Madrazo said they would be tough on crime, none of the candidates said how they would address the gangland war among drug dealers that has claimed hundreds of lives over the last year.
Neither did any of the candidates offer new solutions to illegal immigration, beyond saying the key was to create more jobs in Mexico, rather than to step up security along the border.
Until January, Mr. López Obrador had been leading all other candidates in most polls. An attempt to knock him off the ballot because his administration had ignored a court order backfired, as he mounted huge marches and rallies in his support. The more his political opponents tried to disqualify him from running, the more his popularity rose. Eventually Mr. Fox's prosecutors dropped the charges, as polls showed Mr. López Obrador with 40 percent of the vote.
But Mr. López Obrador stumbled in February when he attacked President Fox for using the bully pulpit of his office to campaign for Mr. Calderón. The leftist accused Mr. Fox of meddling in the election, compared him to a twittering tropical bird called a "chachalaca" and rudely told him to "shut up."
The comment did not sit well with many Mexicans, who revere the presidency, if not the president. Mr. Calderón's campaign pounced on the comment, running ads showing Hugo Chávez, the leader of Venezuela, insulting Mr. Fox side by side with Mr. López Obrador's rant. The Calderón campaign also began calling Mr. López Obrador "intolerant" and "a danger to Mexico."
Mr. López Obrador made a second mistake when he decided to skip the first presidential debate in early April. Mr. Calderon, a Harvard-trained economist, looked the part of a president, sounded well-informed and shot ahead in preference polls.
During the last three weeks of the campaign, Mr. López Obrador was hit with a blizzard of attack ads. Business leaders paid for spots that again used the image of President Chávez of Venezuela to scare voters, saying "Mexico doesn't need a dictator to come out ahead."
Other spots said voting for Mr. López Obrador was equivalent to voting for another economic crisis, like those of 1995 and 1982, in which Mexicans lost most of their savings as the value of the peso plummeted.
Mr. López Obrador struck back, calling his detractors in the business world "white-collar criminals" who used their links to politicians to make money. He also kept up the invective against the "privileges" of the rich, arguing they do not pay taxes and charging the current government was "a committee at the service of a minority."
In his final rally, however, Mr. López Obrador, apparently worried about the attacks, softened his rhetoric and took pains to say he would a careful steward of the economy. "We are not going to act irresponsibly," he said. "We're not going to provoke a crisis."
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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070306Z.shtml
Confusion Grips Mexico Election
By Héctor Tobar / The Los Angeles Times
Monday 03 July 2006
Both leading candidates claim victory, but officials say they won't sort things out until Wednesday. One camp alleges fraud, and the president calls for calm.
Mexico City - Mexico's presidential vote was thrown into turmoil late Sunday, with both leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and conservative Felipe Calderon claiming victory as election officials announced that the two men were separated by a razor-thin margin.
The Federal Election Institute said the result would not be known until Wednesday and that the margin between the two leading candidates would probably be less than a percentage point.
Electoral institute President Luis Carlos Ugalde announced that a "quick count" based on a sample of the votes from about 7% of the precincts had produced a result within the margin of error. Only a full count of the more than 40 million estimated votes could determine the winner, he said.
Lopez Obrador nonetheless announced victory, soon followed by Calderon. Both said late Sunday that their own data showed them winning.
The leftist candidate told supporters late Sunday that the government wanted to cheat him out of a larger victory. "I want to inform the people of Mexico that according to our calculations we have won the presidency," Lopez Obrador said. The final difference, he said, would be 500,000 votes.
Calderon appeared moments later, to say that numerous private exit polls showed he would win. "Today the trends announced by several firms … show that we have won the presidential elections," he said.
Lopez Obrador supporters gathered in the Zocalo, this city's central square, and shouted, "Fraud! Fraud!" Calderon backers at his National Action Party headquarters chanted, "We did it! We did it."
President Vicente Fox called for calm.
"The citizens can have the full certainty, the confidence, that all the votes will be counted and respected," Fox said in a nationally televised address moments after election officials announced their finding.
Early this morning, with 66% of polling stations counted, Calderon's ever-narrowing margin over Lopez Obrador had fallen to 1.2 percentage points.
In the coming days, the muddied result is sure to provide a stern test for Mexico's democratic institutions, which are still struggling to emerge from a long history of corruption and authoritarianism.
Lopez Obrador's statements seemed to play to the worst fears of his supporters, who have long seen themselves as victims of political shenanigans.
"It's difficult to see the elections be manipulated," said Veronica Martinez, who had gathered with a crowd to celebrate what they believed was a Lopez Obrador victory. "This seems like something out of the past."
The election was seen by many as a referendum on the open-market policies embraced by Fox. Dozens of labor unions and leftist groups supported Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.
Roberto Madrazo, the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, was expected to finish a distant third. His party, which monopolized power for 71 years, faced the prospect of becoming the smallest bloc in Congress.
More than 40 million people, or about 60% of the electorate, are believed to have cast ballots, according to the Federal Election Institute. More than 130,000 polling places had been set up, from within yards of the U.S. border in Tijuana, to Indian villages in Chiapas.
The campaign was one of the most acrimonious in Mexican history, with the three leading candidates spending millions on television and radio commercials attacking their opponents.
"I have to vote because it's a duty," said Cleofas Chavez Rodriguez, a 66-year-old resident of San Salvador Atenco, just outside of this capital city. "Of the three, none of them convinced me because they attacked each other so much."
Calderon, 43, ran as the candidate who would best continue economic policies initiated by Fox, who is limited by the constitution to a single, six-year term.
Lopez Obrador, 52, the charismatic former mayor of Mexico City, held a slight lead in most polls. He promised to expand subsidies to the needy and to stimulate the economy with public works projects and reductions in fuel prices.
The campaign slogan of Lopez Obrador's leftist coalition was a succinct, populist message: "For the Good of Everyone, the Poor First."
"We agree a lot with Lopez Obrador because he fights for the poor and the marginalized," said Manuel de Jesus De Lucio, a 50-year-old farmer who cast his vote in a polling booth in an open field in Mexico state.
If Lopez Obrador wins, Mexico would become the latest in a series of Latin American countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru and Chile, to elect left-of-center presidents in recent years.
Lopez Obrador promised to renegotiate certain provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement that opened Mexican markets to U.S. and Canadian imports, and his victory could dramatically alter this country's relationship with the U.S.
Nationwide, only eight polling places failed to open, the best performance ever by Mexico's electoral system, officials said.
Business student Antonio Santiago, 24, was voting for the first time. "I'm voting so that there's democracy," Santiago said at a polling place just outside Mexico City. "So that democracy lives on."
Sunday's vote was also to elect a new Congress — 500 members of the Chamber of Deputies and 128 in the Senate.
No party holds a majority in either house, a state of affairs expected to remain unchanged after Sunday's vote.
Exit polls agreed that the PRI would fall from the being the largest to the third-largest party in Congress. Early results showed the PRI, for the first time in its history, would not carry a single state in the presidential election.
"The collapse of the PRI is one of the big stories of the night," said Pamela Starr of the Eurasia Group, a risk analysis firm. "It's much larger than we expected."
There were some scattered allegations of the kinds of voting irregularities that were common in Mexico's recent past. PRD officials reported that two party activists were killed in the southern state of Guerrero, in a Pacific Coast region beset by drug violence. Election officials said later the killings appeared to be the result of an attempted robbery.
Mexican citizens living in the U.S. were turned away by the hundreds after crossing the border to vote at special polling places that were allocated only 750 ballots each, news services reported.
In Oaxaca, groups of striking teachers surrounded a police station, alleging that officers inside had stacks of ballots pre-marked with votes for the candidates backed by PRI Gov. Ulises Ruiz, news agencies reported. For weeks, teachers have led a protest movement against Ruiz.
The most common complaint was one voiced by voters in many Mexico City neighborhoods: lines outside polling places stretched for blocks.
"I've been here for more than an hour, and I haven't advanced one meter," said Raul Cordero Lopez, a 42-year-old engineer, as he stood in a line with hundreds of voters in southern Mexico City. "It's totally disorganized. The poll workers got here late."
The new president will take the oath of office Dec. 1. Whoever is elected will have to deal with many of the political challenges faced by Fox, who proved unable to pass many legislative proposals, including a tax overhaul.
Since 2003, when he held a referendum in which Mexico City residents voted overwhelming to keep him in office, Lopez Obrador has been widely considered to be the favorite in the presidential race. But he had to fight off an effort last year to have him impeached, which also would have prevented him from running for president.
The Fox administration sought to prosecute Lopez Obrador on an obscure charge related to the construction of a local hospital. Congress impeached him, stripping him of his immunity.
But the charges were dropped after hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Mexico City. Lopez Obrador returned to office and his popularity soared.
Calderon, a former energy secretary under Fox who won his party's nomination in October, trailed Lopez Obrador until March, when he launched what was arguably the most sophisticated media campaign Mexican politics has seen.
In more than a dozen commercials, the Calderon campaign portrayed Lopez Obrador as a demagogue and spendthrift who would bring back the hyperinflation and dramatic currency devaluations of the 1980s and early 1990s.
On Sunday, many Calderon supporters echoed those arguments. "I hope Felipe Calderon wins because he will give more stability and security to all of those who want to live in a country that has prosperity, without any crisis," said Linda Claussen, a 39-year-old restaurant owner here. "I think Lopez Obrador is a danger to Mexico."
By April, Calderon surged into a narrow lead in most polls.
But Lopez Obrador revived his campaign with allegations of corruption against a firm owned by Calderon's brother-in-law. Calderon denied the charges.
The controversy helped propel the former mayor back into the lead in most polls.
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Times staff writers Sam Enriquez, Richard Boudreaux, Carlos Martínez and Cecilia Sánchez in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20060703/ts_nm/mexico_election_dc_23
Mexico conservative claims win By Kieran Murray
47 minutes ago
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's conservative presidential candidate Felipe Calderon declared victory on Monday in a bitterly contested election and official returns appeared to show his leftist rival could no longer catch him.
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Calderon said his lead was now "irreversible" because he had an advantage of almost 400,000 votes over Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the left-wing former mayor of Mexico City, with results in from 96 percent of polling stations.
"There is an irreversible result and it is in my favor," a confident Calderon of the ruling National Action Party said in a television interview. "The result gives me a very clear victory that cannot be reversed."
A Calderon victory would ensure Mexico sticks to the free-market policies of outgoing President Vicente Fox and hold steady as a U.S. ally, bucking a trend of Latin American nations who have turned to the left and away from Washington in recent years.
Lopez Obrador said on Sunday night he won the election by 500,000 votes and would insist that his victory be respected in an official recount but he appeared more open to a possible defeat on Monday.
"If in the count we conduct, it turns out the final result does not favor us, I am going to abide by the result," he said. However, he added, "We are going to defend the will of the people if it favors us."
The official returns and Lopez Obrador's softer tone reduced the risk of a major political crisis of a contested election, and Mexico's financial markets jumped on a wave of investor optimism.
Legislative election results from Sunday showed Calderon's party made major gains and would be the largest single party in the next Congress, although it fell short of a majority.
The stock market jumped 4.5 percent in early trade and Mexico's peso currency rose 1.5 percent.
Mexico's top election official said late on Sunday the race was too close to declare a winner and a recount was needed, but Calderon insisted that was no longer necessary.
With returns in from 96.3 percent of polling stations, the conservative had 36.4 percent support, 1 percentage point ahead of his rival. Lopez Obrador would have to see a dramatic swing in the remaining polling stations to catch up.
If the Federal Electoral Institute goes ahead with a recount, however, it could be days before a final vote count is in.
Some fear that delay and a combative Lopez Obrador could push Mexico toward political deadlock, street protests and volatility in financial markets.
Unrest would also worry the United States, which relies on Mexican help in securing its borders and tackling immigration and violent drug smuggling gangs.
FOUL PLAY?
The U.S. government took a cautious attitude on Monday, preferring to wait for the official final results.
"We note that the final results are still not available," said Frederick Jones, spokesman for the White House National Security Council. "We along with the Mexican people look forward to the announcement of the results."
Lopez Obrador supporters, remembering a 1988 presidential election widely believed to have been stolen from another left-wing candidate, claimed foul play.
"They are up to their tricks because everyone knows Andres Manuel won," Gabriela Ramirez, a Mexico City student, said late on Sunday night.
Critics of Lopez Obrador, a feisty and austere figure who pledged to put Mexico's poor first if elected, said the close race played into his hands and that he was looking for an excuse to mobilize supporters and cause trouble.
"Now if he loses, he can say the rich guys stole it from us. It could lead to chaos," real estate agent Victor Perera said at an upscale Mexico City neighborhood restaurant.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-twomexicos2jul02,1,7264570.story?coll=la-headlines-world
ELECTION IN MEXICO
Divergent Visions for a Divided Nation
The two front-runners in Mexico's presidential race have built support bases that are split along economic, regional and social lines.
By Héctor Tobar, Times Staff Writer
July 2, 2006
MEXICO CITY — When car salesman Alejandro Alcantar looks at the Mexican business world, he sees a new U.S.-style order and efficiency. Interest rates are relatively low. More Mexicans bought new cars last year than ever before. Salesmen are learning about a newfangled idea called "customer service."
Corn farmer Antelmo Bahena feels like his rural world is collapsing around him. He can barely eke out a living on the three acres he rents south of Mexico City. When he can't afford basic things such as medicine, he blames the corn from Nebraska that's showing up in the local tortilla factories.
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The divergent fortunes of the two men reflect a great economic, regional and cultural divide here. In many ways, Mexico has become two countries. And when Mexicans go to the polls today to pick their new president, one side's idea of how Mexico should work will triumph over the other.
Caught, as always, between the United States and the rest of Latin America, Mexico will choose between one candidate who is U.S.-educated and one who isn't. They will pick between a politician who embraces U.S.-style media campaigning and one who leads a mass movement with roots in Latin American radicalism.
Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and conservative Felipe Calderon even claim their strongest bases of support on opposite ends of the country: Lopez Obrador in southern states such as Chiapas and Oaxaca, Calderon in northern border states such as Durango and Nuevo Leon.
The candidates' economic proposals are as similar as those of Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
"We are in favor of modernization, but built from the ground up and for everyone," Lopez Obrador told supporters last week at his final campaign rally. He proposed increases in public spending and government subsidies. "The government I lead will always be guided by the principle: 'For the good of everyone, first the poor.' "
At his own closing rally, Calderon promised to continue the policies of outgoing President Vicente Fox. "We will guarantee policies that attract investment, that will create businesses big and small, which will create the jobs we Mexicans need."
The election of a president will determine whether Mexico continues on a path for the developing world that was laid down in the 1980s by conservative U.S. economists. Fox, who is precluded from seeking reelection, embraced the fundamentals of the neoliberal model: fiscal discipline, open markets and low taxes.
Fox's policies have brought unprecedented stability, enabling millions to secure home and car loans for the first time.
But the same policies also produced anemic rates of growth: An estimated 4 million Mexicans have migrated to the United States in search of work during the six years of Fox's term.
"You've always had a poor distribution of income in Mexico," said Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy research in Washington. "What's changed is that the growth levels of the economy have become so low. You can't pull people out of poverty without economic growth."
Frustrated by their struggles to make a living, millions of poor people are backing Lopez Obrador.
"You go to the grain buyers to sell your product, and sometimes they don't even pay you right away," said Bahena, the corn farmer. He rents farmland in the state of Morelos for $175 a year and barely makes enough money to pay for fertilizer and other costs.
The poverty, which causes so many Morelos residents to migrate to the U.S., is also causing a breakdown of social mores, he said. "The fathers leave to work on the other side, and the mothers are left alone and can't control their sons and daughters."
When the leftist Democratic Revolution Party came to his town to pitch for Lopez Obrador, Bahena listened intently.
Congressional candidate Julian Vences told a story people repeat here again and again. He had seen yellow corn — unmistakably from the U.S. because the local variety is white — in a local grain deposit and tortilla factory.
"Thanks to the [North American] Free Trade Agreement, it's become a rare thing to go to a tortilleria that sells us tortillas made of white corn," Vences said. "That's why Lopez Obrador wants to renegotiate that treaty."
First signed by the leaders of Canada, the United States and Mexico in 1994, the treaty created a mechanism that has gradually eliminated many trade barriers among the countries. A provision eliminating the remaining tariffs on U.S. corn and beans sold in Mexico will go into effect in 2008.
Most of the country's economic elite, and a big chunk of its middle class, is supporting Calderon. They back him in large measure because they remember the bad old days of high inflation and an unstable Mexican peso, a period that stretched, on and off, from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s.
"It was almost impossible to get credit," said car salesman Alcantar, 46. "You had to get a guarantor who would assume the debt if you couldn't pay." Most people who bought cars did so with cash saved over years.
Consumers didn't have many choices when it came to cars — or for many other commodities. "Before, there were just five kinds of cars available here in Mexico," Alcantar said. "When you walked into a dealership, you had to wait forever for a salesman to help you.
"Now we have literally a thousand different choices," Alcantar said. In the new Mexico, salesmen jump to their feet when they see a client, he added.
In the final days before the vote, with polls showing Lopez Obrador in the lead, Calderon's campaign saturated the airwaves with commercials suggesting Mexico's economic stability would disappear if the leftist was elected and increased public spending: The ads compared him to 1970s Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo.
"Lopez Portillo made the same proposals. The result was a crisis that lasted 10 years," intones one Calderon ad that features a Mexican family standing in a neighborhood that resembles U.S. suburbia. "You could lose the house that you bought on credit with so much sweat…. Don't vote for another crisis."
The differences between the two campaigns and their supporters are apparent to even the most casual observer.
Like many recent Mexican presidents, Calderon has an advanced degree from a U.S. university — in his case, from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is the affluent son of a founder of the National Action Party, or PAN.
Calderon's supporters circulate PowerPoint presentations outlining how well Mexico's economy has performed under Fox. Many think he's simply smarter than Lopez Obrador. A few have circulated a rumor (denied by the Lopez Obrador campaign) that the leftist candidate doesn't have a visa to visit the United States: Such visas are seen as a status symbol here.
The rumor goes to the heart of what many Mexicans think a leader should — or should not — look like. Should he be a technocrat who understands the pie charts and spreadsheets that dominate the world of the car salesman? Or should he be a man of the people who shares the anger of the impoverished peasant?
Lopez Obrador, the son of a humble merchant family, is a graduate of the public-funded National Autonomous University of Mexico. One of his first jobs in government involved traveling to the country's indigenous villages. He comes from the Gulf Coast state of Tabasco, a tropical region that has never produced a president.
With its large crowds of passionate supporters and populist rhetoric, Lopez Obrador's campaign draws heavily from Latin American political traditions. It's not uncommon to see a supporter at his rally holding a portrait of Argentine-born revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
Lopez Obrador's backers revel in the low-tech, making their own fliers with scissors and glue, photocopying them and passing them out. For some, the vote is only the latest chapter in a war for social justice.
Ascencion Jaramillo, 83, told seniors at a rally supporting Lopez Obrador in Mexico City to be ready for battle on election day. "We are at the point in the struggle where the time has come to load our weapons," Jaramillo said in a raspy voice. "Our weapon is our vote."
Historian Enrique Krauze has suggested that Lopez Obrador's followers believe in him with too much zeal, that they see him as a "tropical messiah" who will upend Mexico's political institutions in the name of social justice.
At the edge of Lopez Obrador's rallies, you can sometimes find supporters who jokingly suggest that their candidate is, in fact, a superhero. They dress in tight red shirts in the superhero style of El Chespirito, the lovable clown of 1970s Mexican television.
El Chespirito's costume bore the letters "CH" inside a yellow heart, but these people have hearts that announce "PG." The letters, pronounced peh-heh in Spanish, are a play on Lopez Obrador's nickname, El Peje, and also the name of a fish found in Tabasco's rivers.
But the actor who played El Chespirito, Roberto Gomez Bolaños, is backing Calderon. No longer the skinny young man he was in the 1970s, but a rounded-out senior citizen, he describes the PAN slate as the only one that will keep Mexico united.
"Vote always for the PAN." he said. Pointing to his temple, he added, "Think about it."
Then he did something that El Chespirito almost never did: He looked straight into the camera, and winked.
+++++++++
INFOBOX BELOW:
Front-runners= A look at the two leading presidential candidates:
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, 52
* Democratic Revolution Party (Leftist)
* Bachelor's degree in political science
* Party president, 1996-'99
* Mexico City mayor, 2000-'05; promises to govern for the poor and forgotten
+++++++++++++++++
Felipe Calderon, 43
* National Action Party (Conservative)
* Law degree; master's degree in economics and public administration
* Congressman; headed party executive committee, 1996-'99; Banobras bank director, 2000; energy secretary, 2003-'04; supports free-market policies
--
Source: Associated Press
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Bio Boxes on Mexico's leading candidates = Mon Jul 3, 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060703/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_election_bioboxes_3
By The Associated Press
NAME: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
AGE-BIRTH DATE: 52; Nov. 13, 1953, in Tepetitan, Tabasco state.
PARTY: leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.
EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree in political science, National Autonomous University in Mexico City.
EXPERIENCE: Son of shopkeepers; director of Tabasco state Indigenous Institute, 1977; breaks with ruling party in 1988, runs unsuccessfully for Tabasco governor; local official and protest leader for the PRD, 1989-96; loses controversial 1994 Tabasco state governor's race to current presidential rival Roberto Madrazo; PRD president, 1996-99; Mexico City mayor, December 2000-July 2005.
FAMILY: Widower, with three sons.
PLATFORM: Promises to govern for Mexico's poor and forgotten, although he has adopted more centrist policies since beginning campaign.
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NAME: Felipe Calderon Hinojosa.
AGE-BIRTH DATE: 43; Aug. 18, 1962, in Morelia, Michoacan state.
PARTY: President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, or PAN.
EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree in law, Free School of Law in Mexico City; master's degree in economics, Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico; master's degree in public administration, Harvard University.
EXPERIENCE: Son of one of PAN's founders; headed PAN youth movement; unsuccessful run for Michoacan governor in 1995; federal congressman, 1998-2000; headed PAN's executive committee, 1996-99; director of national development bank Banobras in 2000; energy secretary, September 2003-May 2004; topped two other candidates to win PAN's presidential primary in October.
FAMILY: Married to former PAN congresswoman Margarita Zavala. Three children.
PLATFORM: Says free-market policies would be cornerstone of his government; pledges to guarantee universal health care, better education and access for all to basics like food and water.
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Profiles of Mexico's 2 main candidates = Mon Jul 3, 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060703/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_candidate_profiles_3
ANDRES MANUEL LOPEZ OBRADOR =
MEXICO CITY - Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is a shopkeeper's son and a leftist who promises "the poor come first," but has sought to distance himself from the growing tide of leftist leaders in Latin America.
Mexicans, tired of politicians who get rich in office, like his frugal style. A widower and father of three, he lives in a modest Mexico City apartment and rides in a compact car, albeit with a driver.
Born on Nov. 13, 1953, in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco, Lopez Obrador earned a political science bachelor's degree at Mexico's National Autonomous University and worked on development projects for Tabasco's impoverished Chontal Indians, sometimes living among them.
He left the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party in 1988 to join the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, made a failed run for the Tabasco governorship, and took up street politics, joining in brief seizures of government-owned oil wells to demand payment for spill damages in 1996.
As mayor of Mexico City, he spent freely on ambitious freeways for the capital and a $65 monthly stipend for every resident over age 70. The city's debt is up but its traffic congestion persists.
Facing an impeachment effort last year that would have knocked him out of the presidential race, Lopez Obrador mobilized mass demonstrations and prevailed. After five years as mayor, he quit last July to run for president.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
FELIPE CALDERSON =
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Felipe Calderon portrays himself as an underdog who will make good on President Vicente Fox's unfulfilled promises.
Calderon's father helped found the pro-business, pro-church National Action Party, or PAN, in the 1930s. Calderon, 43, is married to a former congresswoman.
Born in the central state of Michoacan on Aug. 18, 1962, Harvard-educated Calderon first went to work for PAN at age 26, heading its youth wing before running unsuccessfully for Michoacan governor.
He directed the party for three years until 1999 and twice served as a federal congressman.
After Fox won the presidency in 2000, ending the Institutional Revolutionary Party's 71-year hold on power, Calderon headed the party's bloc in the House but his failure to broker compromises doomed many of Fox's pet projects.
Fox made him energy secretary, but Calderon stepped down in May 2004 after the president criticized him for launching his presidential campaign while still in office.
Fox is limited by the constitution to a single six-year term.
Although Calderon was not the president's top choice as his successor, he easily won his party's three-way primary race.
A father of three, Calderon is the youngest of three major presidential hopefuls and reached out to young voters and women. He promises to reduce crime, extend government health and service programs and continue market-friendly economic policies to create jobs.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/03/world/americas/03elect.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
July 3, 2006: On a Peaceful Election Day Across Mexico, Growing Signs of a Maturing Democracy
By GINGER THOMPSON
MEXICO CITY, July 2 — If Mexico is a young democracy, it looked much older than its age during the uncertain presidential elections on Sunday.
Thousands of striking teachers in the southern state of Oaxaca postponed their protests to leave the polling places clear for voters. Subcommander Marcos, the ski-masked leader of the Zapatista rebels who was at the front of machete-wielding mobs just one month ago, led a peaceful march through Mexico City.
The government's Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, welcomed hundreds of observers from all over the world. The authorities estimated that more than two-thirds of registered voters would show up at the polls. And at polling places that once were scenes of huge voter fraud and intimidation, voting passed without serious disruptions or complaints. And at the end of the night, when President Vicente Fox went on national television to explain that the race was too close to call, a nation gripped by suspense and leery of dirty tricks remained calm.
"I know there is no Mexican who wants to go against democracy," Mr. Fox said after casting his ballot on Sunday. "And for that, I offer recognition to the people of Mexico who have known how to consolidate this democracy, to give it strength."
In 2000, Mr. Fox broke through the old system of fraud to become the first presidential candidate in 71 years to oust the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
Robert Pastor, a Latin America expert at American University, who has observed Mexican elections for 20 years and once helped this country come up with mechanisms for cleaning out corruption, said the situation had changed.
"Mexico created an institution a decade ago which in many ways is one of the most sophisticated in the world today," Mr. Pastor said, referring to the IFE. "They have done so much to prevent fraud, implemented all kinds of safeguards, none of which we have in the United States."
On upscale boulevards and in gritty housing projects across Mexico City, voting was a family affair. Parents filled out ballots and children stuffed them into the boxes. Voters banded together to carry elderly people who showed up in wheelchairs. When a poll worker in Polanco announced it was his mother's birthday, the whole place joined together to sing to her.
That, however, was where the affinity among voters ended.
Well-to-do voters typically said they had cast ballots for the pro-business conservative Felipe Calderón, while voters in poorer districts said they voted for the leftist populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador. José María Morera, 52, said he had decided to vote for Mr. Calderón because he worried that Mr. López Obrador "creates a situation of conflict between the social classes."
"He seems cynical, arrogant, uncultured, with no political skills," Mr. Morera said. "I do not think he's honorable."
That was not what Cuitlahuac Herrera Nolasco, a resident of Ixtapalapa, a working-class section of Mexico City, thought. "López Obrador is the only one who has shown, with acts, that he knows how to govern," Mr. Herrera said, referring to the former mayor of Mexico City, who is known for living in a modest apartment, driving a cheap car and building double-decker freeways. "To me he is the most honest. I like his austerity."
Middle class voters, like those in Ecatepec, a suburb north of Mexico City, seemed divided.
Georgina Martínez, 65, a former textile worker, was helped to the polls and to her political preferences by two sons, one a dentist and another who runs a small textile factory of his own.
They voted for Mr. Calderón, of the conservative National Action Party, PAN.
"I normally vote for the PRI," she said. "But after talking to my sons, I voted for the PAN."
Néstor Santoyo, a single father, said he voted for Mr. López Obrador of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD.
"We have already tried the other parties," Mr. Santoyo said. "Now we will try the PRD. I hope it is better than the others."
Striking teachers in Oaxaca, which is still dominated by the PRI, took a break from their protests to rally voters to support Mr. López Obrador. The teachers had been striking for months to demand higher wages.
But after the police tried to break their protests by force last month, the teachers began to demand the resignation of Gov. Ulises Ruiz. And they have accused Mr. Fox of the National Action Party of ignoring them.
In the days before the elections, there were reports in Chiapas of PRI leaders using their old tricks to get votes. Residents in the town of Zaachila said party members handed out cement and other construction supplies in an effort to buy votes.
It was unclear whether their tactics had worked.
"The vote is ultimately secret and free," said Marta Rojas Sebastián, a lifelong resident there, "so we'll take whatever they give us and then we'll vote for whomever we want."
Antonio Betancourt and Elisabeth Malkin contributed reporting from Mexico City for this article, and Mitch Carr from Oaxaca.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/03/world/americas/03cnd-mexico.html?hp&ex=1151985600&en=54a191f73704523c&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Conservative's Slim Lead in Mexico Buoys Markets =July 3, 2006
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
MEXICO CITY, July 3 — The latest uncertified results in Sunday's fiercely contested Mexican presidential election show a slim lead for the conservative candidate, Felipe Calderón.
Investors seized on the news and sharply bid up the prices of Mexican stocks and the value of its currency in early trading today. The Bolsa index gained more than 3 percent and the Mexican peso rose 9 percent against the dollar.
Election officials declared on Sunday that they could not immediately determine a winner, that certified results were days away, and that a recount was likely in the close race. The two front runners each declared victory anyway, setting in motion an electoral crisis.
The contest pitted Mr. Calderón, a conservative former energy minister backed by business leaders, primarily against Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the firebrand leftist former mayor of Mexico City, supported mostly by the poor. A third candidate, Roberto Madrazo, the former governor of Tabasco state, also received substantial support.
With 94.26 percent of the votes counted, the Federal Electoral Institute said this morning, Mr. Calderón had 36.55 percent of the count so far, and Mr. López Obrador with 35.46 percent. Mr. Madrazo trailed with 21.28 percent.
Mr. López Obrador said at a downtown hotel on Sunday that he would respect the decision of the election institute, even if he lost by one vote. Yet in the same breath, he said he was sure he had won by 500,000 votes. "This result is irreversible," he said.
Appearing before supporters a few minutes later at his party headquarters, Mr. Calderón rattled off the results of several surveys of voters as they left the polls, and the vote counts at crucial voting districts, all favoring him. "There is not the slightest doubt that we have won the election," he said.
Surveys of polling stations by election officials showed that the contest was too close to call, and they urged people to remain calm until official results could be reported.
On Sunday evening, Mr. Calderón's lead initially appeared wider, as much as three percentage points, when about 25 percent of the polling places had been counted. But as the night wore on, tension gripped the capital as it became clear that the race was razor-close.
For hours, the leading candidates remained closeted at their campaign headquarters rather than appear at the downtown hotels where they were expected to receive the results.
Luis Ugalde, the head of the Federal Electoral Institute, appeared twice on national television Sunday evening, urging the candidates and their supporters to wait for official results. President Vicente Fox also addressed the nation, pleading with voters to heed the election commission's decision. "It's the responsibility of all political actors to respect the law," he said.
But Mr. López Obrador, who critics say has an authoritarian streak, acted as if he was already the president-elect. After the electoral institute said the official results were days away, he went immediately to the historic central square, where thousands of his supporters had gathered to celebrate.
"We are going to demonstrate that we won, and they have to respect our victory," he told the crowd.
At stake in the contest is whether the country remains on a conservative track and stays a firm United States ally or joins a trend that has brought several leftists to power in Latin America in recent years, weakening Washington's influence.
"This is about the struggle between social classes," said Miguel Abel Sanchez, a 55-year-old shopkeeper, after he said he cast his vote for the leftist candidate in the rural town of San Rafael, 25 miles outside Mexico City. "We cannot live in a rich country with an enormous number of people in extreme poverty."
The election was another milestone in the country's march toward full democracy after more than seven decades of single-party, autocratic rule, which ended with the election six years ago of President Fox, who was not permitted to run for another term.
The campaign was marked by wide differences on how to handle the economy and a storm of negative advertising, as Mr. López Obrador's opponents tried to generate a high level of anxiety that his leftist populism would undo the country's democratic progress and stability.
Though Mexico has myriad problems, from rampant organized crime to environmental degradation, the election revolved around the issues of poverty and jobs, and how to close a yawning chasm between rich and poor that has sent some 10 million Mexicans north of the border in search of work since a free trade pact with the United States took hold over a decade ago.
Mr. Calderón, 43, said he would create jobs through securing more private investment and by cutting taxes. Mr. López Obrador, 52, said he would spend $20 billion on social programs and public works to jump-start the economy.
Underlying the debate was the larger issue of whether Mexico's attempt to fit into the global economy through free trade agreements had done enough to alleviate poverty. Mr. López Obrador argued that it had not and that a new economic policy to funnel more tax dollars to the poor was needed. Mr. Calderón wanted to stay the course.
Mr. López Obrador also promised to slash spending on government salaries, root out corruption and cut other waste. He attacked what he called the privileged elite in Mexico, a network of businessmen and politicians that he said for too long had evaded taxes and become rich from government contracts and the sale of state monopolies.
"There cannot be a rich government and a poor people," Mr. López Obrador said repeatedly in his campaign speeches.
Mr. Calderón warned direly that Mr. López Obrador's plan would lead to more debt and an economic collapse. He said that Mexico had to compete in the global economy and that it could triumph with his leadership. He said he would encourage more foreign investment, allow private partnerships in the state-run oil business and slash corporate taxes. "I want a winning Mexico," he said.
Mr. Madrazo, 53, carrying the banner of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or P.R.I., tried to position himself in the center, promising to crack down on crime, cut taxes and provide more direct aid to the poor.
Throughout the country, from small towns to the sprawling capital, people stood patiently in line at open-air polling places, most of them little more than fold-up tables holding voter lists, ballots and cardboard ballot boxes with cellophane sides.
The line of voters in San Rafael was a panorama of Mexico: youths in shades and leather jackets, weathered farmers in white cowboy hats, sun-hardened old ladies in straw hats, small business owners in jeans, knit shirts and loafers. About two-thirds of Mexico's 71 million voters were expected to turn out.
Some said they were voting for Mr. Calderón, of President Fox's National Action Party, to give the free-trade and pro-business policies of the government more time to work. Mr. Fox made history in 2000 when he defeated the P.R.I., but most of the reforms he promised ran aground in Congress.
"In 6 years, you cannot undo what other people have done over 70 years," said Arturo Garcia, a 49-year-old tortilla maker. "Fox was tied up by the Congress."
Some left-wing fringe groups boycotted the election. On Sunday morning, Subcommander Marcos, the masked leader of the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, marched down Reforma Avenue, the spine of Mexico City, with a few thousand supporters, heaping scorn on all the political parties. Some danced in the street and waved Communist flags.
This race was the first modern election in Mexico in which all three major candidates received equal coverage from the media and waged an American-style battle of advertisements on radio and television, from inspirational spots promising more jobs to clever mudslinging attacks.
Mexicans learned the pitfalls and advantages of negative advertising, as all sides delivered broadsides. Mr. Calderón's camp tried to paint Mr. López Obrador as a dangerous leftist and a closet dictator who would bankrupt the country with welfare programs.
Mr. López Obrador portrayed Mr. Calderón as a member of the ruling elite that has enjoyed what he called "privileges" in Mexico for centuries — government sinecures, sweetheart contracts and low taxes.
All three major candidates refrained from bashing the United States or making naked appeals to nationalism, which used to be a mainstay in political campaigns here. Though Mr. Calderón and Mr. Madrazo said they would be tough on crime, none of the candidates said how they would address the gangland war among drug dealers that has claimed hundreds of lives over the last year.
Neither did any of the candidates offer new solutions to illegal immigration, beyond saying the key was to create more jobs in Mexico, rather than to step up security along the border.
Until January, Mr. López Obrador had been leading all other candidates in most polls. An attempt to knock him off the ballot because his administration had ignored a court order backfired, as he mounted huge marches and rallies in his support. The more his political opponents tried to disqualify him from running, the more his popularity rose. Eventually Mr. Fox's prosecutors dropped the charges, as polls showed Mr. López Obrador with 40 percent of the vote.
But Mr. López Obrador stumbled in February when he attacked President Fox for using the bully pulpit of his office to campaign for Mr. Calderón. The leftist accused Mr. Fox of meddling in the election, compared him to a twittering tropical bird called a "chachalaca" and rudely told him to "shut up."
The comment did not sit well with many Mexicans, who revere the presidency, if not the president. Mr. Calderón's campaign pounced on the comment, running ads showing Hugo Chávez, the leader of Venezuela, insulting Mr. Fox side by side with Mr. López Obrador's rant. The Calderón campaign also began calling Mr. López Obrador "intolerant" and "a danger to Mexico."
Mr. López Obrador made a second mistake when he decided to skip the first presidential debate in early April. Mr. Calderon, a Harvard-trained economist, looked the part of a president, sounded well-informed and shot ahead in preference polls.
During the last three weeks of the campaign, Mr. López Obrador was hit with a blizzard of attack ads. Business leaders paid for spots that again used the image of President Chávez of Venezuela to scare voters, saying "Mexico doesn't need a dictator to come out ahead."
Other spots said voting for Mr. López Obrador was equivalent to voting for another economic crisis, like those of 1995 and 1982, in which Mexicans lost most of their savings as the value of the peso plummeted.
Mr. López Obrador struck back, calling his detractors in the business world "white-collar criminals" who used their links to politicians to make money. He also kept up the invective against the "privileges" of the rich, arguing they do not pay taxes and charging the current government was "a committee at the service of a minority."
In his final rally, however, Mr. López Obrador, apparently worried about the attacks, softened his rhetoric and took pains to say he would a careful steward of the economy. "We are not going to act irresponsibly," he said. "We're not going to provoke a crisis."
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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070306Z.shtml
Confusion Grips Mexico Election
By Héctor Tobar / The Los Angeles Times
Monday 03 July 2006
Both leading candidates claim victory, but officials say they won't sort things out until Wednesday. One camp alleges fraud, and the president calls for calm.
Mexico City - Mexico's presidential vote was thrown into turmoil late Sunday, with both leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and conservative Felipe Calderon claiming victory as election officials announced that the two men were separated by a razor-thin margin.
The Federal Election Institute said the result would not be known until Wednesday and that the margin between the two leading candidates would probably be less than a percentage point.
Electoral institute President Luis Carlos Ugalde announced that a "quick count" based on a sample of the votes from about 7% of the precincts had produced a result within the margin of error. Only a full count of the more than 40 million estimated votes could determine the winner, he said.
Lopez Obrador nonetheless announced victory, soon followed by Calderon. Both said late Sunday that their own data showed them winning.
The leftist candidate told supporters late Sunday that the government wanted to cheat him out of a larger victory. "I want to inform the people of Mexico that according to our calculations we have won the presidency," Lopez Obrador said. The final difference, he said, would be 500,000 votes.
Calderon appeared moments later, to say that numerous private exit polls showed he would win. "Today the trends announced by several firms … show that we have won the presidential elections," he said.
Lopez Obrador supporters gathered in the Zocalo, this city's central square, and shouted, "Fraud! Fraud!" Calderon backers at his National Action Party headquarters chanted, "We did it! We did it."
President Vicente Fox called for calm.
"The citizens can have the full certainty, the confidence, that all the votes will be counted and respected," Fox said in a nationally televised address moments after election officials announced their finding.
Early this morning, with 66% of polling stations counted, Calderon's ever-narrowing margin over Lopez Obrador had fallen to 1.2 percentage points.
In the coming days, the muddied result is sure to provide a stern test for Mexico's democratic institutions, which are still struggling to emerge from a long history of corruption and authoritarianism.
Lopez Obrador's statements seemed to play to the worst fears of his supporters, who have long seen themselves as victims of political shenanigans.
"It's difficult to see the elections be manipulated," said Veronica Martinez, who had gathered with a crowd to celebrate what they believed was a Lopez Obrador victory. "This seems like something out of the past."
The election was seen by many as a referendum on the open-market policies embraced by Fox. Dozens of labor unions and leftist groups supported Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.
Roberto Madrazo, the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, was expected to finish a distant third. His party, which monopolized power for 71 years, faced the prospect of becoming the smallest bloc in Congress.
More than 40 million people, or about 60% of the electorate, are believed to have cast ballots, according to the Federal Election Institute. More than 130,000 polling places had been set up, from within yards of the U.S. border in Tijuana, to Indian villages in Chiapas.
The campaign was one of the most acrimonious in Mexican history, with the three leading candidates spending millions on television and radio commercials attacking their opponents.
"I have to vote because it's a duty," said Cleofas Chavez Rodriguez, a 66-year-old resident of San Salvador Atenco, just outside of this capital city. "Of the three, none of them convinced me because they attacked each other so much."
Calderon, 43, ran as the candidate who would best continue economic policies initiated by Fox, who is limited by the constitution to a single, six-year term.
Lopez Obrador, 52, the charismatic former mayor of Mexico City, held a slight lead in most polls. He promised to expand subsidies to the needy and to stimulate the economy with public works projects and reductions in fuel prices.
The campaign slogan of Lopez Obrador's leftist coalition was a succinct, populist message: "For the Good of Everyone, the Poor First."
"We agree a lot with Lopez Obrador because he fights for the poor and the marginalized," said Manuel de Jesus De Lucio, a 50-year-old farmer who cast his vote in a polling booth in an open field in Mexico state.
If Lopez Obrador wins, Mexico would become the latest in a series of Latin American countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru and Chile, to elect left-of-center presidents in recent years.
Lopez Obrador promised to renegotiate certain provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement that opened Mexican markets to U.S. and Canadian imports, and his victory could dramatically alter this country's relationship with the U.S.
Nationwide, only eight polling places failed to open, the best performance ever by Mexico's electoral system, officials said.
Business student Antonio Santiago, 24, was voting for the first time. "I'm voting so that there's democracy," Santiago said at a polling place just outside Mexico City. "So that democracy lives on."
Sunday's vote was also to elect a new Congress — 500 members of the Chamber of Deputies and 128 in the Senate.
No party holds a majority in either house, a state of affairs expected to remain unchanged after Sunday's vote.
Exit polls agreed that the PRI would fall from the being the largest to the third-largest party in Congress. Early results showed the PRI, for the first time in its history, would not carry a single state in the presidential election.
"The collapse of the PRI is one of the big stories of the night," said Pamela Starr of the Eurasia Group, a risk analysis firm. "It's much larger than we expected."
There were some scattered allegations of the kinds of voting irregularities that were common in Mexico's recent past. PRD officials reported that two party activists were killed in the southern state of Guerrero, in a Pacific Coast region beset by drug violence. Election officials said later the killings appeared to be the result of an attempted robbery.
Mexican citizens living in the U.S. were turned away by the hundreds after crossing the border to vote at special polling places that were allocated only 750 ballots each, news services reported.
In Oaxaca, groups of striking teachers surrounded a police station, alleging that officers inside had stacks of ballots pre-marked with votes for the candidates backed by PRI Gov. Ulises Ruiz, news agencies reported. For weeks, teachers have led a protest movement against Ruiz.
The most common complaint was one voiced by voters in many Mexico City neighborhoods: lines outside polling places stretched for blocks.
"I've been here for more than an hour, and I haven't advanced one meter," said Raul Cordero Lopez, a 42-year-old engineer, as he stood in a line with hundreds of voters in southern Mexico City. "It's totally disorganized. The poll workers got here late."
The new president will take the oath of office Dec. 1. Whoever is elected will have to deal with many of the political challenges faced by Fox, who proved unable to pass many legislative proposals, including a tax overhaul.
Since 2003, when he held a referendum in which Mexico City residents voted overwhelming to keep him in office, Lopez Obrador has been widely considered to be the favorite in the presidential race. But he had to fight off an effort last year to have him impeached, which also would have prevented him from running for president.
The Fox administration sought to prosecute Lopez Obrador on an obscure charge related to the construction of a local hospital. Congress impeached him, stripping him of his immunity.
But the charges were dropped after hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Mexico City. Lopez Obrador returned to office and his popularity soared.
Calderon, a former energy secretary under Fox who won his party's nomination in October, trailed Lopez Obrador until March, when he launched what was arguably the most sophisticated media campaign Mexican politics has seen.
In more than a dozen commercials, the Calderon campaign portrayed Lopez Obrador as a demagogue and spendthrift who would bring back the hyperinflation and dramatic currency devaluations of the 1980s and early 1990s.
On Sunday, many Calderon supporters echoed those arguments. "I hope Felipe Calderon wins because he will give more stability and security to all of those who want to live in a country that has prosperity, without any crisis," said Linda Claussen, a 39-year-old restaurant owner here. "I think Lopez Obrador is a danger to Mexico."
By April, Calderon surged into a narrow lead in most polls.
But Lopez Obrador revived his campaign with allegations of corruption against a firm owned by Calderon's brother-in-law. Calderon denied the charges.
The controversy helped propel the former mayor back into the lead in most polls.
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Times staff writers Sam Enriquez, Richard Boudreaux, Carlos Martínez and Cecilia Sánchez in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20060703/ts_nm/mexico_election_dc_23
Mexico conservative claims win By Kieran Murray
47 minutes ago
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's conservative presidential candidate Felipe Calderon declared victory on Monday in a bitterly contested election and official returns appeared to show his leftist rival could no longer catch him.
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Calderon said his lead was now "irreversible" because he had an advantage of almost 400,000 votes over Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the left-wing former mayor of Mexico City, with results in from 96 percent of polling stations.
"There is an irreversible result and it is in my favor," a confident Calderon of the ruling National Action Party said in a television interview. "The result gives me a very clear victory that cannot be reversed."
A Calderon victory would ensure Mexico sticks to the free-market policies of outgoing President Vicente Fox and hold steady as a U.S. ally, bucking a trend of Latin American nations who have turned to the left and away from Washington in recent years.
Lopez Obrador said on Sunday night he won the election by 500,000 votes and would insist that his victory be respected in an official recount but he appeared more open to a possible defeat on Monday.
"If in the count we conduct, it turns out the final result does not favor us, I am going to abide by the result," he said. However, he added, "We are going to defend the will of the people if it favors us."
The official returns and Lopez Obrador's softer tone reduced the risk of a major political crisis of a contested election, and Mexico's financial markets jumped on a wave of investor optimism.
Legislative election results from Sunday showed Calderon's party made major gains and would be the largest single party in the next Congress, although it fell short of a majority.
The stock market jumped 4.5 percent in early trade and Mexico's peso currency rose 1.5 percent.
Mexico's top election official said late on Sunday the race was too close to declare a winner and a recount was needed, but Calderon insisted that was no longer necessary.
With returns in from 96.3 percent of polling stations, the conservative had 36.4 percent support, 1 percentage point ahead of his rival. Lopez Obrador would have to see a dramatic swing in the remaining polling stations to catch up.
If the Federal Electoral Institute goes ahead with a recount, however, it could be days before a final vote count is in.
Some fear that delay and a combative Lopez Obrador could push Mexico toward political deadlock, street protests and volatility in financial markets.
Unrest would also worry the United States, which relies on Mexican help in securing its borders and tackling immigration and violent drug smuggling gangs.
FOUL PLAY?
The U.S. government took a cautious attitude on Monday, preferring to wait for the official final results.
"We note that the final results are still not available," said Frederick Jones, spokesman for the White House National Security Council. "We along with the Mexican people look forward to the announcement of the results."
Lopez Obrador supporters, remembering a 1988 presidential election widely believed to have been stolen from another left-wing candidate, claimed foul play.
"They are up to their tricks because everyone knows Andres Manuel won," Gabriela Ramirez, a Mexico City student, said late on Sunday night.
Critics of Lopez Obrador, a feisty and austere figure who pledged to put Mexico's poor first if elected, said the close race played into his hands and that he was looking for an excuse to mobilize supporters and cause trouble.
"Now if he loses, he can say the rich guys stole it from us. It could lead to chaos," real estate agent Victor Perera said at an upscale Mexico City neighborhood restaurant.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-twomexicos2jul02,1,7264570.story?coll=la-headlines-world
ELECTION IN MEXICO
Divergent Visions for a Divided Nation
The two front-runners in Mexico's presidential race have built support bases that are split along economic, regional and social lines.
By Héctor Tobar, Times Staff Writer
July 2, 2006
MEXICO CITY — When car salesman Alejandro Alcantar looks at the Mexican business world, he sees a new U.S.-style order and efficiency. Interest rates are relatively low. More Mexicans bought new cars last year than ever before. Salesmen are learning about a newfangled idea called "customer service."
Corn farmer Antelmo Bahena feels like his rural world is collapsing around him. He can barely eke out a living on the three acres he rents south of Mexico City. When he can't afford basic things such as medicine, he blames the corn from Nebraska that's showing up in the local tortilla factories.
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The divergent fortunes of the two men reflect a great economic, regional and cultural divide here. In many ways, Mexico has become two countries. And when Mexicans go to the polls today to pick their new president, one side's idea of how Mexico should work will triumph over the other.
Caught, as always, between the United States and the rest of Latin America, Mexico will choose between one candidate who is U.S.-educated and one who isn't. They will pick between a politician who embraces U.S.-style media campaigning and one who leads a mass movement with roots in Latin American radicalism.
Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and conservative Felipe Calderon even claim their strongest bases of support on opposite ends of the country: Lopez Obrador in southern states such as Chiapas and Oaxaca, Calderon in northern border states such as Durango and Nuevo Leon.
The candidates' economic proposals are as similar as those of Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
"We are in favor of modernization, but built from the ground up and for everyone," Lopez Obrador told supporters last week at his final campaign rally. He proposed increases in public spending and government subsidies. "The government I lead will always be guided by the principle: 'For the good of everyone, first the poor.' "
At his own closing rally, Calderon promised to continue the policies of outgoing President Vicente Fox. "We will guarantee policies that attract investment, that will create businesses big and small, which will create the jobs we Mexicans need."
The election of a president will determine whether Mexico continues on a path for the developing world that was laid down in the 1980s by conservative U.S. economists. Fox, who is precluded from seeking reelection, embraced the fundamentals of the neoliberal model: fiscal discipline, open markets and low taxes.
Fox's policies have brought unprecedented stability, enabling millions to secure home and car loans for the first time.
But the same policies also produced anemic rates of growth: An estimated 4 million Mexicans have migrated to the United States in search of work during the six years of Fox's term.
"You've always had a poor distribution of income in Mexico," said Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy research in Washington. "What's changed is that the growth levels of the economy have become so low. You can't pull people out of poverty without economic growth."
Frustrated by their struggles to make a living, millions of poor people are backing Lopez Obrador.
"You go to the grain buyers to sell your product, and sometimes they don't even pay you right away," said Bahena, the corn farmer. He rents farmland in the state of Morelos for $175 a year and barely makes enough money to pay for fertilizer and other costs.
The poverty, which causes so many Morelos residents to migrate to the U.S., is also causing a breakdown of social mores, he said. "The fathers leave to work on the other side, and the mothers are left alone and can't control their sons and daughters."
When the leftist Democratic Revolution Party came to his town to pitch for Lopez Obrador, Bahena listened intently.
Congressional candidate Julian Vences told a story people repeat here again and again. He had seen yellow corn — unmistakably from the U.S. because the local variety is white — in a local grain deposit and tortilla factory.
"Thanks to the [North American] Free Trade Agreement, it's become a rare thing to go to a tortilleria that sells us tortillas made of white corn," Vences said. "That's why Lopez Obrador wants to renegotiate that treaty."
First signed by the leaders of Canada, the United States and Mexico in 1994, the treaty created a mechanism that has gradually eliminated many trade barriers among the countries. A provision eliminating the remaining tariffs on U.S. corn and beans sold in Mexico will go into effect in 2008.
Most of the country's economic elite, and a big chunk of its middle class, is supporting Calderon. They back him in large measure because they remember the bad old days of high inflation and an unstable Mexican peso, a period that stretched, on and off, from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s.
"It was almost impossible to get credit," said car salesman Alcantar, 46. "You had to get a guarantor who would assume the debt if you couldn't pay." Most people who bought cars did so with cash saved over years.
Consumers didn't have many choices when it came to cars — or for many other commodities. "Before, there were just five kinds of cars available here in Mexico," Alcantar said. "When you walked into a dealership, you had to wait forever for a salesman to help you.
"Now we have literally a thousand different choices," Alcantar said. In the new Mexico, salesmen jump to their feet when they see a client, he added.
In the final days before the vote, with polls showing Lopez Obrador in the lead, Calderon's campaign saturated the airwaves with commercials suggesting Mexico's economic stability would disappear if the leftist was elected and increased public spending: The ads compared him to 1970s Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo.
"Lopez Portillo made the same proposals. The result was a crisis that lasted 10 years," intones one Calderon ad that features a Mexican family standing in a neighborhood that resembles U.S. suburbia. "You could lose the house that you bought on credit with so much sweat…. Don't vote for another crisis."
The differences between the two campaigns and their supporters are apparent to even the most casual observer.
Like many recent Mexican presidents, Calderon has an advanced degree from a U.S. university — in his case, from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is the affluent son of a founder of the National Action Party, or PAN.
Calderon's supporters circulate PowerPoint presentations outlining how well Mexico's economy has performed under Fox. Many think he's simply smarter than Lopez Obrador. A few have circulated a rumor (denied by the Lopez Obrador campaign) that the leftist candidate doesn't have a visa to visit the United States: Such visas are seen as a status symbol here.
The rumor goes to the heart of what many Mexicans think a leader should — or should not — look like. Should he be a technocrat who understands the pie charts and spreadsheets that dominate the world of the car salesman? Or should he be a man of the people who shares the anger of the impoverished peasant?
Lopez Obrador, the son of a humble merchant family, is a graduate of the public-funded National Autonomous University of Mexico. One of his first jobs in government involved traveling to the country's indigenous villages. He comes from the Gulf Coast state of Tabasco, a tropical region that has never produced a president.
With its large crowds of passionate supporters and populist rhetoric, Lopez Obrador's campaign draws heavily from Latin American political traditions. It's not uncommon to see a supporter at his rally holding a portrait of Argentine-born revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
Lopez Obrador's backers revel in the low-tech, making their own fliers with scissors and glue, photocopying them and passing them out. For some, the vote is only the latest chapter in a war for social justice.
Ascencion Jaramillo, 83, told seniors at a rally supporting Lopez Obrador in Mexico City to be ready for battle on election day. "We are at the point in the struggle where the time has come to load our weapons," Jaramillo said in a raspy voice. "Our weapon is our vote."
Historian Enrique Krauze has suggested that Lopez Obrador's followers believe in him with too much zeal, that they see him as a "tropical messiah" who will upend Mexico's political institutions in the name of social justice.
At the edge of Lopez Obrador's rallies, you can sometimes find supporters who jokingly suggest that their candidate is, in fact, a superhero. They dress in tight red shirts in the superhero style of El Chespirito, the lovable clown of 1970s Mexican television.
El Chespirito's costume bore the letters "CH" inside a yellow heart, but these people have hearts that announce "PG." The letters, pronounced peh-heh in Spanish, are a play on Lopez Obrador's nickname, El Peje, and also the name of a fish found in Tabasco's rivers.
But the actor who played El Chespirito, Roberto Gomez Bolaños, is backing Calderon. No longer the skinny young man he was in the 1970s, but a rounded-out senior citizen, he describes the PAN slate as the only one that will keep Mexico united.
"Vote always for the PAN." he said. Pointing to his temple, he added, "Think about it."
Then he did something that El Chespirito almost never did: He looked straight into the camera, and winked.
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INFOBOX BELOW:
Front-runners= A look at the two leading presidential candidates:
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, 52
* Democratic Revolution Party (Leftist)
* Bachelor's degree in political science
* Party president, 1996-'99
* Mexico City mayor, 2000-'05; promises to govern for the poor and forgotten
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Felipe Calderon, 43
* National Action Party (Conservative)
* Law degree; master's degree in economics and public administration
* Congressman; headed party executive committee, 1996-'99; Banobras bank director, 2000; energy secretary, 2003-'04; supports free-market policies
--
Source: Associated Press
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Bio Boxes on Mexico's leading candidates = Mon Jul 3, 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060703/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_election_bioboxes_3
By The Associated Press
NAME: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
AGE-BIRTH DATE: 52; Nov. 13, 1953, in Tepetitan, Tabasco state.
PARTY: leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD.
EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree in political science, National Autonomous University in Mexico City.
EXPERIENCE: Son of shopkeepers; director of Tabasco state Indigenous Institute, 1977; breaks with ruling party in 1988, runs unsuccessfully for Tabasco governor; local official and protest leader for the PRD, 1989-96; loses controversial 1994 Tabasco state governor's race to current presidential rival Roberto Madrazo; PRD president, 1996-99; Mexico City mayor, December 2000-July 2005.
FAMILY: Widower, with three sons.
PLATFORM: Promises to govern for Mexico's poor and forgotten, although he has adopted more centrist policies since beginning campaign.
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NAME: Felipe Calderon Hinojosa.
AGE-BIRTH DATE: 43; Aug. 18, 1962, in Morelia, Michoacan state.
PARTY: President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, or PAN.
EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree in law, Free School of Law in Mexico City; master's degree in economics, Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico; master's degree in public administration, Harvard University.
EXPERIENCE: Son of one of PAN's founders; headed PAN youth movement; unsuccessful run for Michoacan governor in 1995; federal congressman, 1998-2000; headed PAN's executive committee, 1996-99; director of national development bank Banobras in 2000; energy secretary, September 2003-May 2004; topped two other candidates to win PAN's presidential primary in October.
FAMILY: Married to former PAN congresswoman Margarita Zavala. Three children.
PLATFORM: Says free-market policies would be cornerstone of his government; pledges to guarantee universal health care, better education and access for all to basics like food and water.
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Profiles of Mexico's 2 main candidates = Mon Jul 3, 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060703/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_candidate_profiles_3
ANDRES MANUEL LOPEZ OBRADOR =
MEXICO CITY - Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is a shopkeeper's son and a leftist who promises "the poor come first," but has sought to distance himself from the growing tide of leftist leaders in Latin America.
Mexicans, tired of politicians who get rich in office, like his frugal style. A widower and father of three, he lives in a modest Mexico City apartment and rides in a compact car, albeit with a driver.
Born on Nov. 13, 1953, in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco, Lopez Obrador earned a political science bachelor's degree at Mexico's National Autonomous University and worked on development projects for Tabasco's impoverished Chontal Indians, sometimes living among them.
He left the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party in 1988 to join the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, made a failed run for the Tabasco governorship, and took up street politics, joining in brief seizures of government-owned oil wells to demand payment for spill damages in 1996.
As mayor of Mexico City, he spent freely on ambitious freeways for the capital and a $65 monthly stipend for every resident over age 70. The city's debt is up but its traffic congestion persists.
Facing an impeachment effort last year that would have knocked him out of the presidential race, Lopez Obrador mobilized mass demonstrations and prevailed. After five years as mayor, he quit last July to run for president.
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FELIPE CALDERSON =
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Felipe Calderon portrays himself as an underdog who will make good on President Vicente Fox's unfulfilled promises.
Calderon's father helped found the pro-business, pro-church National Action Party, or PAN, in the 1930s. Calderon, 43, is married to a former congresswoman.
Born in the central state of Michoacan on Aug. 18, 1962, Harvard-educated Calderon first went to work for PAN at age 26, heading its youth wing before running unsuccessfully for Michoacan governor.
He directed the party for three years until 1999 and twice served as a federal congressman.
After Fox won the presidency in 2000, ending the Institutional Revolutionary Party's 71-year hold on power, Calderon headed the party's bloc in the House but his failure to broker compromises doomed many of Fox's pet projects.
Fox made him energy secretary, but Calderon stepped down in May 2004 after the president criticized him for launching his presidential campaign while still in office.
Fox is limited by the constitution to a single six-year term.
Although Calderon was not the president's top choice as his successor, he easily won his party's three-way primary race.
A father of three, Calderon is the youngest of three major presidential hopefuls and reached out to young voters and women. He promises to reduce crime, extend government health and service programs and continue market-friendly economic policies to create jobs.
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