You'd think this was interesting news, at least it was to us
diarying it here: in Mexico, a huge struggle has been going on now for about 6 weeks where the supposedly losing liberal candidate and grassroots skeptics all around the country angrily denounce and march by the millions that their presidential election was marred by error and fraud. Although we (we US & Mexican diarists) don't claim perfect knowledge, we did know for damn sure that it should have been big, big news not just in Spanish sources but in the English-language press.
'People power' is a global brand owned by America
The US and the western media back protests over controversial elections when it suits them, but are silent over those in Mexico
Mark Almond
Tuesday August 15, 2006
...when a million Mexicans try to jump on the people-power bandwagon, crying foul about the July 2 presidential elections, when protesters stage a vigil in the centre of the capital that continues to this day, they meet a deafening silence in the global media.
Here are a few more excerpts from Almond's column (link to full article in title):
'People power' is a global brand owned by America
The US and the western media back protests over controversial elections when it suits them, but are silent over those in Mexico
Mark Almond
Tuesday August 15, 2006
Guardian Unlimited, London
A couple of years ago television, radio and print media in the west just couldn't get enough of "people power". In quick succession, from Georgia's rose revolution in November 2003, via Ukraine's orange revolution a year later, to the tulip revolution in Kyrgyzstan and the cedar revolution in Lebanon, 24-hour news channels kept us up to date with democracy on a roll.
...But when a million Mexicans try to jump on the people-power bandwagon, crying foul about the July 2 presidential elections, when protesters stage a vigil in the centre of the capital that continues to this day, they meet a deafening silence in the global media. Despite Mexico's long tradition of electoral fraud and polls suggesting that Andrés Manuel López Obrador - a critic of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) - was ahead, the media accepted the wafer-thin majority gained by the ruling party nominee, Harvard graduate Felipe Calderón.
Although Mexico's election authorities rejected López Obrador's demand for all 42m ballots to be recounted, the partial recount of 9% indicated numerous irregularities. But no echo of indignation has wafted to the streets of Mexico City from western capitals.
...Apparently, crowds of protesters squatting in Mexico City for weeks protesting against alleged vote-rigging don't make a good news story. Occasionally commentators who celebrated Ukrainians blocking the main thoroughfares of Kiev condescend to jeer at Mexico's sore losers and complain that businessmen are missing deadlines because dead-enders with nothing better to do are holding up the traffic. Ukraine's Viktor Yushchenko was decisive when he declared himself president, but isn't López Obrador a demagogue for doing the same?
...The crude truth is that Washington cannot afford to let Mexico's vast oil reserves fall into hands of a president even half as radical as Venezuela's Hugo Chávez.
The days of leftwing fraternalism may be over, but the globalist right has its own network...
...But Mexico is different because it is so under-reported. The cruel reality is that "people power" has become a global brand. But like so many global brands it is owned by Americans. Mexicans and any other "populists" who try to copy it should beware that they're infringing a copyright. No matter how many protesters swarm through Mexico City or how long they protest, it is George Bush and co who decide which people truly represent The People. People power turns out to be about politics, not arithmetic.
Much media coverage in Mexico City and centrist / right wing commentary focus on how support for the protests and sit-in's seem to be dropping in the capital itself -- which of course is where traffic and work routines are disrupted. An article from the centrist daily El Universal supports this view with its own poll.
But look at what you find several paragraphs down:
Esta firme desaprobación surge a pesar de que los capitalinos comparten los planteamientos del candidato de la alianza Por el Bien de Todos: 59% considera que en efecto hubo fraude en las elecciones federales del 2 de julio, y 63% que debería haber un recuento voto por voto y casilla por casilla.
In English:
This firm disapproval [of the protest activities] surges despite the fact that Mexico City inhabitants share the assumptions of the candidate of the Por el Bien de Todos alliance [the liberal coalition]: 59% consider that there was effectively fraud in the federal elections of July 2nd, and 63% hold that there should be a [complete] recount, vote by vote and polling station by polling station.
For their part, the liberal activists often erect signs mimicking the style of construction signs: "Pardon the Inconvenience: Democracy Under Construction."
Now, it's not as if this issue has received zero coverage, far from it. Even our own Washington Post and New York Times has weighed in, with some high quality reporting and 'blogging' and editorials, in which the Washington Post denounces the liberal candidate as copying Stalin and the New York Times backs a full recount for the nation's best interest.
And it is a messy and complicated issue in some ways. But then, maybe DailyKos isn't just for those seeking easy answers.