Mexico City – Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told the biggest Spanish-language television network in the United States that he is president of Mexico “by the will of the majority,” though election authorities have yet to rule on his challenge of results that gave the victory to his conservative opponent.
Officials results showed Felipe Calderon with an advantage of 0.58 percent over Lopez Obrador in the July 2 balloting, but the leftist is demanding a vote-by-vote recount.
Mexico’s electoral tribunal has until Sept. 6 to declare who will be sworn-in Dec. 1 to succeed conservative incumbent Vicente Fox for a six-year term.
In an interview set to air in two parts Wednesday and Thursday on the Univision network, Lopez Obrador said he is his country’s president “by the will of the majority of Mexicans” and that election authorities were seeking to rob him of his victory.
His remarks, made in an exchange with Univision news anchor Jorge Ramos at the U.S. broadcaster’s bureau in Mexico City, came a day after the boss of Mexico’s powerful teachers union referred to Calderon as “president-elect” in a public address.
Elba Esther Gordillo, who is close to Fox, told reporters afterward that she misspoke, but her words filled the front pages of the capital dailies on Wednesday.
The labor leader was recently expelled from the once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and has been working since election night to persuade state governors and others from her erstwhile party of the virtues of an alliance with the National Action Party of Fox and Calderon.
Lopez Obrador asked Calderon to join him in calling for a comprehensive recount of all 41 million ballots cast on July 2, but the rightist declined, countering with an invitation to his opponent to enter a dialogue.
The leftist’s top aides rejected that idea and continued preparations for what they hope will be a massive rally on Sunday in Mexico City’s emblematic Zocalo plaza, the third such event held by Lopez Obrador since the elections.
The first gathering drew nearly 300,000 people and the second, on July 16, attracted an even bigger crowd.
Responding to criticisms of the street protests as intimidation and an incitement to violence, the former capital mayor pointed out that National Action supporters had blocked roads and even occupied a local airport in 1991 to protest PRI electoral chicanery that denied Vicente Fox the governorship of his home state of Guanajuato.
