Mexico City – Mexico’s young democracy entered uncharted territory late Sunday as the Party of the Democratic Revolution filed the first of what would be 152 lawsuits aimed at overturning results of the July 2 presidential election.
Top leaders of Mexico’s left-leaning party, known by its Spanish initials PRD, cited a series of balloting irregularities in their plea to challenge the count in all 300 of Mexico’s electoral districts.
Manuel Camacho, campaign coordinator for candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, told McClatchy Newspapers that the party had begun filing legal briefs with local election officials across the country.
An 800-page complaint was set to be filed in Mexico City by midnight, he said.
The remaining lawsuits will be filed by today’s deadline in a quest to overturn the election that conservative Felipe Calderon of the ruling National Action Party, or PAN, won by 243,000 votes out of 41 million cast.
Now the Federal Electoral Tribunal, known by its Spanish acronym TRIFE, must determine whether there is sufficient evidence to warrant opening up and recounting ballots nationwide.
Horacio Duarte, one of the architects of the PRD’s electoral challenge, said earlier Sunday his party would document roughly 50,000 inconsistencies between the computerized vote count July 2 and the official recount that ended in the wee hours of Thursday, when Calderon declared victory.
Specifically, Duarte alleged that on election night, there were “predesigned results.” He alleged vote-counting software was vulnerable and that the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, allowed someone to manipulate results to show Calderon continually in the lead. During the official recount days later, Lopez Obrador led almost continually until the overnight hours.
Rene Miranda, in charge of the IFE’s computer count, said Calderon appeared to have a large lead throughout election night. He called the results “precise, unassailable and reliable.”
