Political echoes are still being heard from Friday night:
Legislators yelling for a recount and criticizing the extreme security measures surrounding the Congress building in the July 2 vote surrounded the podium on Friday, leaving [outgoing President] Fox -- wearing his presidential sash -- standing at the door of the chambers looking annoyed but resigned and with no choice but to hand in his annual, written report and leave.
Also in the news (at least in Mexico), the liberal US study group CEPR has
taken a preliminary look at the partial recount just conducted:
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) has found a significant loss of votes for PAN presidential candidate Felipe Calderón in a sample of recounted ballots..."This is inexplicably one-sided, with Calderón losing votes but López Obrador not losing any," said CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot...The result for the whole group of recounted ballot boxes would likely show a similar percentage, since the above ballot box totals were chosen randomly...
A bit more from El Universal's article (via the Miami Herald's English language Mexico News) on repercussions being either felt, imagined, feared, or hoped from Friday night's Congressional protest; follow link for full text:
Fox's legacy at risk due to political crisis
After toppling the ruling party, the president faces chaos in his final months
Wire services
El Universal
September 03, 2006
An unprecedented protest by leftist lawmakers that forced President Vicente Fox to abandon his State of the Nation Address is fueling fears that Mexico's political crisis over a disputed presidential election is spiraling out of control.
Legislators yelling for a recount and criticizing the extreme security measures surrounding the Congress uilding in the July 2 vote surrounded the podium on Friday, leaving Fox -- wearing his presidential sash -- standing at the door of the chambers looking annoyed but resigned and with no choice but to hand in his annual, written report and leave...
...After protests for the first time kept a president from giving his yearly address Congress, Fox aired a recorded speech on national television that touted his government's accomplishments, while skirting a direct mention of the country's worst political crisis in modern history. It cut to video of smiling school children and other cheerful scenes...
...But his biggest challenge has come at the end of his six-year term. How he handles the deepening crisis in his final three months will be crucial to the fate of the country's democracy...
...Some analysts say Fox needs to use his party's increased weight in the new Congress to push through social programs that will benefit the poor and possibly diffuse López Obrador's support.
"If Congress approves a social program that helps the mass of Mexican people, no one will remember whether Calderón won by 250,000 votes or 25 million votes," said George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. "You create your own mandate."
And the Center for Economic and Policy Research made headlines in Mexico, although the study is apparently only a preliminary study, based on a smaller sample (with some questions in my mind on how it would have been possible to truly randomize the subsample selection) of the large partial recount just concluded. Nevertheless, it's newsworthy and may with time be expanded to a broader check if the TEPJF releases sufficient data. (For full text and a downloadable PDF of the study, follow the link.)
CEPR ADDS UP AVAILABLE RECOUNT DATA, FINDS SIGNIFICANT VOTE REDUCTION FOR CALDERON
Result Could Explain Electoral Authorities' Reluctance to Release Recount Data
For Immediate Release: September 2, 2006
WASHINGTON - The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) has found a significant loss of votes for PAN presidential candidate Felipe Calderón in a sample of recounted ballots.
Adding up the numbers for 1,706 ballot boxes (casillas) shows a loss of 1,362 votes for Felipe Calderón. Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the PBT shows a gain of 77 votes.
"This is inexplicably one-sided, with Calderón losing votes but López Obrador not losing any," said CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot. "It is also a significant percentage of votes in an election this close."
The 1,362 votes lost by Calderón represent 0.54 percent of his votes in these ballot boxes.
The result for the whole group of recounted ballot boxes would likely show a similar percentage, since the above ballot box totals were chosen randomly from the documents posted on the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary (TEPJF) web site. The ballot box totals compiled by CEPR comprise 14.4 percent of the 11,839 ballot boxes that were recounted.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) has been searching through many thousands of pages in 375 documents [www.trife.org.mx (see "Ultimas sentencias dictadas")] released over the past week by the TEPJF, for numbers on the recount conducted by the TEPJF from August 9 to August 13. The process is laborious but most of the results appear to be buried in these documents.
In other words, the full recount results might be available but it takes several days of research to find and compile the numbers for 11,839 ballot boxes scattered among many thousands of pages of documents.
Although the recount was completed nearly three weeks ago, the TEPJF has refused to release the numbers showing how the candidates' vote totals were changed by the recount. This contrasts sharply to the procedure followed for the preliminary and second vote tallies in July, when the results were made public immediately.
"This certainly casts doubt on the electoral authorities' decision to reject a full recount," said Weisbrot. "And it makes the TEPJF's decision not to release the recounted vote totals look even worse..."*