Author John Ross tells a frightening story in the
SF Bay Guardian of how fraud, manipulation, unconstitutional campaigning, imprisonment, coercion, and a biased Mexican television duopoly were used as effective tools to steal the Mexican elections.
Mexican elections are stolen before, during, and after Election Day. Just look at what happened in the days leading up to the tightest presidential election in the nation's history this past July 2nd.
Details include a hacked PRD web site, highly questionable (for their timing among other things) arrests and interrogations conducted by President Vicente Fox's government during the 3 day campaign blackout period - one for an alleged crime dating back to 1968 - and illegal campaigning under the guise of official government business by the Fox administration.
Fasten your seat belts and join me below the fold.
3 Day Campaign Blackout
By law all campaigning had to cease 3 days before the election on Saturday July 2nd. On the Wednesday evening before the election, agents from President Fox's Attorney General's office went to the prison where former Mexico City Finance Secretary Ponce is awaiting charges on corruption.
According to Ross, Ponce was rousted from his cell and pressured to testify on the spot that Presidential candidate Obrador used city funds to finance his campaign. Meanwhile, the Televisa and TV Axteca networks, whom Ross states have waged an "unrelenting dirty war" against Obrador had live crews outside the prison ready to broadcast Ponce's "confession" in specially reserved blocks of time in their prime-time newscasts. To his credit, Ponce refused.
The next day, Thursday, Obrador and PAN's election website was hacked with a phony message that supporters should take to streets:
On Thursday June 29th, Lopez Obrador's people awoke to discover that the candidate's electronic page had been hacked and a phony message purportedly signed by AMLO posted there calling upon his supporters to hit the streets "if the results do not favor us." Although officials of Lopez Obrador's party, the PRD, immediately proved the letter to be a hoax, the pro-Calderon media broadcast the story for hours as if it were the gospel truth, eventually forcing the PRD and its allies to reaffirm that AMLO would abide by results released by the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), the nation's maximum electoral authority, even if the IFE's numbers did not favor the candidate.
The desired effect here was to put Obrador and the PRD on the defensive, in the hope that they would be intimidated and not protest the fraud that allegedly had already been planned by its political enemies (the uncounted 3,000,000 votes and other irregularities) But the PRD was not intimidated. They later cried foul after the election, and demanded a recount.
But that's getting ahead of the story: there were still more shenanigans before the first election.
After Wednesday's prison showdown and Thursday's hacking of the PRD website, on Friday Fox's government called on its special prosecutor to take special action on a "left-wing crime" dating from 1968 and 1971!
On Friday, June 30th, after more than five years of false starts, Fox's special prosecutor for political crimes placed former president Luis Echeverria under house arrest for his role in student massacres in 1968 and 1971. Not only was the long overdue arrest portrayed by big media as a feather in Fox's -- and therefore, Calderon's - cap, but it also put the much-hated Echeverria, a pseudo-leftist with whom Calderon has often compared Lopez Obrador, back on the front pages. Since Echeverria is an emeritus member of the PRI, the bust killed two birds with one very opportunist stone.
During and After
The article goes on to give it's take on the fraudulent elections and the uncounted 3,000,000 ballots that we've heard from other news sources and that led to the recount, which many feel was also fabricated and which Obrador has promised to challenge in court. There are also accounts of widely reported vote manipulations and inaccuracies - check the article. It was hard to chose 3 paragraphs to copy from the story. I chose to cite the ones addressing the pre-election shenanigans.
Ross also details the lack of coverage by "Mexico's two-headed TV monster" of Obrador's post-recount speech, choosing instead to show entertainment news and soap operas (telenovas).
The article is truly a good read, and while unapologetically from a liberal perspective, it recounts many details that we've simply not been privy too in the mainstream English media.
This election ain't over yet, not by a long shot. Despite attempts to allege that Obrador will violently oppose the results, he will instead challenge them -as is his right- through the legal processes provided by Mexican law.
Stay tuned.