Reaching Closure on Mexican Elections

Today’s Washington Post featured an editorial arguing that presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador should concede the election to Felipe Calderón, the candidate of the conservative PAN party. For the past several weeks, Mr. Lopez Obrador has encouraged his followers to protest the election, and they have camped out in tent cities throughout downtown Mexico City costing local businesses millions of dollars in lost revenues. Mr. Lopez Obrador has called the election a fraud without showing evidence of that being true other than presenting evidence of minor voting irregularities at some polling stations that would not have changed the results of the election.

Some analysts have called for a decision by the Mexican Federal Electoral Tribunal to recount ballots for the election. The highly respected Tribunal has in fact done so, recounting the results of almost 12,000 polling stations representing 9 percent of the election results. Nothing resulting from the recount would indicate a change in the overall election results.

The time is drawing nigh for the Tribunal to make a final decision about who will be Mexico’s next president. Mexico’s has a history of election fraud and failing to follow sound democratic processes, so that it gives one pause hearing allegations of corruption. However, in the 1980’s and 1990’s CIPE, for example, worked with private sector groups like COPARMEX to improve election processes in the country to bolster peoples’ faith in the democratic process. Today, Mexico has made clear gains that reflect positively in the opening up of the political system, first with the election of Vicente Fox and now with Felipe Calderon.

Once the Tribunal makes its final decision on the president elect it will be important for all candidates to acknowledge the results of the election process and to support the new government. There is much to be done in the country to implement a reform agenda that will create jobs and make Mexico more competitive. That effort will require a political consensus across party lines to support the best interests of the Mexican people.