Doing Math in Mexico

[Joanne98]

I know this is old but it's a good article
DON'T FORGET ABOUT MEXICO!

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/james_k_galbraith/2006/07/the_mexican_standoff.html

While Mexicans take to the streets over the presidential vote, democracy's fairweather friends are standing silent.
James K Galbraith

All James K Galbraith articles
About Webfeeds July 17, 2006

The election was stolen. It's not in doubt. Colin Powell admits it. The National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute both admit it. Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana - a Republican - was emphatic: there had been "a concerted and forceful program of election-day fraud and abuse"; he "had heard" of employers telling their workers how to vote; yet he had also seen the fire of the resisting young, "not prepared to be intimidated".


In Washington, Zbigniew Brzezinski has demanded that the results be set aside and a new vote taken, under the eye - no less - of the United Nations. In The New York Times, Steven Lee Myers decried "the use of government resources on behalf of loyal candidates and the state's control over the media" - factors, he said, were akin to practices in "Putin's Russia".

I wrote those words two years ago, for Salon. They referred, of course, to the election in the Ukraine, where the presidential candidate favoured by the powerful neighbouring state (Russia) had claimed a tainted victory in a tight race. The thunder from America, citadel of democracy, was overwhelming. Nothing mattered more than to see the vote annulled, a new election held. The subsequent installation of Viktor Yuschenko as President of Ukraine was widely celebrated as a great triumph for democracy.

But that, of course, was in another country. Two weeks have now passed since the presidential vote in Mexico, pitting Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the party for a Democratic Revolution (PRD) against Felipe Calderón of the ruling National Action party (PAN). The candidate who trailed, López Obrador, has explicitly charged that the count was cooked. He has challenged the result in court. No final resolution is due before September.

Yet the stalwarts of democracy outside Mexico are silent. Bush has congratulated Calderón, not waiting for the court to rule. Reuters and Bloomberg echo the confidence of the elites that Calderón will win in court - never mind whether he won at the polls. When The New York Times is heard from, the headlines tell us of the "leftist claims" about the occurrence of fraud, while Calderón is described as "presidential." The Times never doubted that fraud did occur in Ukraine. In Mexico on the other hand, it seemingly renounces any duty to examine the facts on the ground.

Here's one difference between the two situations. In Ukraine, it was extremely hard to learn exactly what the evidence of fraudulence actually was. In Mexico, it is extremely easy. That is because the Mexican electoral authority, known as IFE, posted the ongoing count on its website in real time, an initiative called PREP. Independent scholars kept a record of PREP as the night progressed. A statistical analysis of that record does not, of course, constitute proof. But it brings to mind Henry David Thoreau's remark that circumstantial evidence can be very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/james_k_galbraith/2006/07/the_mexican_standoff.html