Lets remember the importance of recounting the votes. The PAN in 2000, in first instance lost the run for a delegation (is that a word?) in Mexico City. Alejandro Encinas, present "Government Chief" of the capital, won in first instance the elections. The PAN candidate, Luis Eduardo Zuno, yelled fraud and a vote recount took place. In the end, there was an overturn and he won the election, thanks to the fact that the IFE reopened the electoral packages.
Curiously, after the event Luis Eduardo Zuno was prosecuted for illegal weapon posession, and Encinas took part in AMLO's team in the capital. Fbaezer should know more details than me.
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Yesterday a copy of one of the prescint acts reached me. The PRD will start distributing it because the numbers dont match. There seems to be a couple of irregularities on it that I want to share with you. Ill post it later when I reach home...
el_pohl wrote:Lets remember the importance of recounting the votes. The PAN in 2000, in first instance lost the run for a delegation (is that a word?) in Mexico City. Alejandro Encinas, present "Government Chief" of the capital, won in first instance the elections. The PAN candidate, Luis Eduardo Zuno, yelled fraud and a vote recount took place. In the end, there was an overturn and he won the election, thanks to the fact that the IFE reopened the electoral packages.
Curiously, after the event Luis Eduardo Zuno was prosecuted for illegal weapon posession, and Encinas took part in AMLO's team in the capital. Fbaezer should know more details than me.
For everyone: The Federal District of Mexico City is not divided into municipalities, but "delegaciones", which are somewhat less autonomous.
Sure, I remember. Encinas was candidate for a number of parties, including the Social-democrats. He had won by an inch on the original count. PAN sent their claims to the TEPJDF (the local electoral tribunal) and a number of packages were opened
(NOT ALL, only those in which the tribunal found to be enough evidence in the claim). The election's outcome was overturned.
Delegación Alvaro Obregón got a lousy PAN delegate, the government of Mexico City got a fine secretary
Too bad the fine secretary has become a campaigner from a government post.
Ah, dang it!!! Where do I upload the photo??? This is kinda complicated. :woops:
I interviewed Woldenberg yesterday.
He says:
1. An electoral fraud is impossible.
2. It's unimaginable that all prescinct officers were bought. It's very difficult to think that everyone born in January is corrupt (citizens born in January and with last names from W to B were the officers,according to the draw).
3. It's sad that [AMLO followers] erode the credibility of electoral institutions. It took many years to build the confidence.
4. The campaign -and post-campaign- accusations are not believed by party leaders, but they are by followers, creating an ugly social climate. They are seeding a political polarization that may remain in time, even if the parties come to necessary agreements.
José Woldenberg is a former social organizer, union activist and left wing party builder, (a founder of both PSUM and PRD), and has always been a political analyst. Woldenberg was the key person for the transformation of electoral institutions in Mexico. He was a member of the original IFE council and was the President of IFE from 1996 to 2003.
This is the link (in Spanish):
Entrevista a José Woldenberg
Thanks for the info, fbaezer.
One loose end:
fbaezer wrote:2. It's unimaginable that all prescinct officers were bought.
But not all of them would
need to be bought, right? Just a slice of them would have been enough to create the kind of margin Calderon got?
About 2,500 prescincts, nimh, according to journalist Raymundo Riva Palacio (who was pro-AMLO during all the campaign).
That would mean buying 2,500 "teams" of six to nine people, who usually do not know each other and who -by definition- belong to different parties.
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Let me quote Woldenberg again (his article in today's "Reforma"):
"New priests and officers, new saints and faithful, now integrated in a new community in faith with political budgets, agendas, instruments and means. We know it already. Empirical evidence does not change the certitude of the faithful. Doubt is the main corrosive of revealed truth, and whoever walks away from the circle of the "true ones", of the devout, is treated like a heretic, like an apostath, a renegade...
"Everyone fits in the political communities in faith: the worker, the housewife, the professionist, the young one, the scientist, the old social organizer and the instantly convinced. Only one requisite is necessary: to not dissent, to believe, to follow the Messenger...
"The communities in faith have the need to gather. In small or big spaces, because they require to feel the weight of the crowd in a way that the sense of belonging is reinforced by the meeting. Big massive reunions are fascinating for those who participate, a powerful "us" is generated, apparently almighty, which strenghthens convictions and makes tangible the sense of belonging. Beyond the "circle of faith", those rituals seems menacing. Those meetings fuse those inside and alert those outside...
"Communities in faith have leadership. The voice of the guide is more powerful than any reasoning. To believe or to know becomes a dilemma. Evident truths, elemental truths become impertinent. Even specialized knowledges and dexterities make their contribution to the shared dogma. Everyone contributes to the cause. as the mission requires it and claims it.
"It worthwhile to reread Condorcet: 'As long as men exist who do not obey to their reason, who receive their opinion from a foreign opinion, all chains will have been broken in vain".
Sergio Sarmiento (also of "Reforma") on the algorithm theory:
"A lot has been said about that mysterious algorithm -which indoubtedly will earn a Nobel prize or a Fields prize to the inventor- that transformed AMLO votes into Calderón votes in the PREP. But besides buying the program operators and the prestigious experts who supervised it, an indredibly complex strategy must have been applied, so that the results of the PREP coincide with the results of the sum of the acts, the results of the fast counts and the exit polls. The precision is specially surprising if we take into account that, in the district councils, 2800 electoral packages were opened and recounted by request of PRD.
"I have very serious doubt about that State organized fraud really existed. But if it existed, no one can question the President for his alleged lack of intelligence. We'd be, in fact, in front of one of the greatest geniuses in history. After all, making a fraud is not hard, but doing it so precisely, the many locks of the Mexican electoral system notwithstanding, and without leaving traces is something only achievable by a privileged mind.
"But, are there really no traces? Of course. If there were, AMLO wouldn't still be trying to decide if the fraud was cibernetic or old style."
Ok ok ok. I think I learned how to do this. Here goes!
Now, this is a picture taken by my cellphone (I know, it rocks) which shows a prescint act that accounts all the votes for that particular umm... ballot-place. Anyways, its an official copy and is signed by the reps of all the parties. Unfortunately the picture doesnt show that...
but I did took note of it.
The problem with this document is that the numbers doesnt match! Supposedly 241 people voted and 292 votes went to the PAN. According to my PRD friend, they only fed the numbers to the IFE, but they didn't check if the sum was correct. Now, not only the votes for PAN should be less, but the votes for all the parties should be too.
The act is for the 5th district in my hometown. A PAN hardcore zone. The fact that is so lousily filled makes me want to think its a fake.
I think the copy is legit, el_pohl.
And it's a very common mistake, specially in zones where people have problems with both grammar and arithmetic. I believe they were mixed-up and wrote on the total of ballots received the total of ballots cast, plus they can't sum.
It's the typical case of a prescinct with what IFE calls "inconsistencies". In recent elections this mistakes have been found in around 2% of prescincts.
The data of the prescinct is on the PREP, with results for each candidate exactly as they appear on your copy.
But I bet the package was opened during the recount, precisely because of the inconsistencies. If it wasn't, it should.
What I don't see is fraud.
The copy you got is taken from a PRD reppresentative, right?
It has the signatures, you say.
And no irregularity is reported.
Then?
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Excellent info fbaezer! Wow the system has to be effective if one can find that information on the net.
Yes, it was an inconscistency, a strange one indeed, but that apparently didn't favor a particular party. Curiously it WAS signed. Hell knows why though...
Walked to work, el_pohl.
The thing that amazed me is that, as I walked by Reforma, almost no one was there. There were tents, alright, but hardly anybody below them. Small groups of PRD and PT activists, chatting. And by small I mean less than 10.
IMHO the blockade is made more by the city's government and PRD cadres than by the pro-AMLO masses (I saw no masses today).
Huh. I've just been reading about the 'blockade' on the bbc, nytimes, and Reuters.
here's the bbc link -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5230972.stm
got the links for the NYT and Reuters articles from the BBC one.
Just to say that the photos are from yesterday's big rally.
Today at noon Reforma was quite empty. It was odd.
This was too good, and I just had to post it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HIxWvs_LOE
Good thing you are alive Báez. López Obrador might be crazy, but I'm suffering here. On one side I have HUNDREDS of irregularities on the recount: exceeding ballots, disappeared ballots, ballots marked with pencils, a LOT of votes given to Calderón (on a handfull of prescints though) which where miscalculated, PROCESO magazine finally speaking up and being objective (on my POV), and now Ahumada giving this declarations.
- By the way I'm sorry at our fellow foreign visitors in this thread for not explaining thoroughly this topics -
On the other hand theres the media minimizing this declarations, stating that they where putting pressure on Ahumada, Calderón saying that the "mexicans already counted the votes and that they counted them perfectly" (come on! Calderón was his padrino in his wedding!) and receiving PRI governors on shady meetings.
Damn it! As Carlos Elizondo Meyer (was he?) said, "in a democracy where you can win or lose with one vote, its important to clear every single vote".
I know that AMLO has lost lots of supporters by his extreme and illegal measures, but hey, every civil movement breaks the law to some extent.
Well, Im glad we have both of you on here - so were getting a balanced picture of the mood over there :wink:
(Actually, I mean that.)
I'm hanging around, watching - Just nothing informative to add.