by Latin Briefs and Prensa Latina
Andrés Manuel López Obrador
Mexico’s defeated leftist presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador is once again refusing to go quietly. He is preparing a legal challenge alleging that the victor Enrique Peña Nieto benefited from massive vote buying and campaign overspending by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), as well as media bias. He is insisting that the elections should be annulled or invalidated.
Intriguingly, the ruling Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) is levelling exactly the same charges at Peña Nieto while, pointedly, refusing to present a joint legal challenge with the Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD) and recognising his victory.
Venezuela gets its Mercosur wish
After a bit of deft maneuvering by Brazil and Argentina, Venezuela will be formally welcomed as a full member of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur, founded by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) on 31 July next.
President of the National Action Party (PAN), Gustavo Madero, said that the presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto most stop claiming because there were really irregularities in the elections of July 1.
Mexican coalition challenges elections
Madero faced the statements of Peña Nieto, aspiring to the presidency by the coalition of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Green Ecologist, who described as false the buying of votes in his favor, said the daily La Jornada.
He also said that the former Governor of the State of Mexico is still lying, because his party wins election with money and deception. This occurred in this election, he said.
Madero added that his party is convinced of two things: they did not win the elction and that there were serious flaws that must be analyzed, punished and corrected.
He said that to date there has been agreed to coordinate efforts to ensure that they can punish and correct the detected irregularities in the use of surveys for propaganda purposes.
In addition, there were also assessed what is related to the exceeding of the limit of campaign spending, the interference of the governors in the electoral process and the case Monex, which as experts have warned fits into the scheme of money laundering.
Today expires the deadline for political parties submit their deputies with the authorities and not until Sept. 6, in which the Electoral Tribunal of Judicial Power of the Federation has given its decision on the classification of the elections.
According to the final count of the IFE is ratified in the lead with 38.21 percent of the votes to Peña Nieto, followed by López Obrador, with 31.59, and the PAN Josefina Vázquez Mota with 25.41.
