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	Participate in Democracy: Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, could Mexico be next? an article by Eugenia Garcia del Conde The Presidential elections were held on July 2nd of this year. There was suspense in the air as the next elected president of Mexico was to be announced on every public news channel in the country. Minutes grew to hours and there was still no answer. The public was uneasy. As it turns out the number of votes between one party (Partido de Accion Nacional) led by Felipe Calderon and another (Partido de la Revolucion Democratica) led by Lopez Obrador, was so close the Electoral Federal Institution needed 3 more days to determine the final decision. The country was in panic, on one hand you had the successor of the current ruling party leading the country to the next century and in the other, you had what many people consider the next Mexican Hugo Chavez; with his extreme political positions and popular tactics to win over the masses. Decision day came and as originally projected by public polls the PAN party won by a difference of 258,000 popular votes. The presidential candidates agreed before the elections that the final decision of the EFI would be considered official and finite. However this agreement was not fulfilled and Lopez Obrador, with a difference 0.58% of votes of the votes refused to accept the newly elected President Felipe Calderon as the official president of Mexico. What will determine the future leader of Mexico? There is a Electoral Federal Court that will make a final determination no later than August 30th regarding the final verdict to be announced on September 6th . Until then there will continue to be political uncertainty. Although there is much controversy and argument surrounding the process and final decision to be made, at least the democratic process of elections do prevail in Mexico, a privilege we are pleased to exercise. It is interesting to note that Mexico now joins the ranks of other countries with similar controversial election results.		DISCUSSION Question(s) related to this article: When election results are not accepted by the candidates, what should be done? * * * * * Latest reader comment: I believe that the question of disputed elections is far more complicated than indicated in this article. I am one of those who protested against the "theft" of the last presidential election in the United States in the state of Ohio, where it appears that the computers were "rigged". We need the kind of election supervision by independent bodies that was done in the previous elections (including, by the way, in Venezuela) by the Carter Commission. See the previous discussion in CPNN on the topic What would it take for the U.S. presidential election to be fair?.
This report was posted on August 2, 2006.