Mexico City – Mexico will have a final decision at last today on its disputed July 2 presidential race, with the nation’s top electoral court expected to declare ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon president-elect.
But the long-awaited ruling by the Federal Electoral Tribunal – which comes two months, three days, and tens of thousands of pages of legal challenges after voters cast their ballots – is unlikely to end potentially explosive uncertainty or close the growing political divide gripping the country.
Most court rulings so far have favored Calderon, who has a 240,000-vote advantage over leftist rival Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
During an early morning session today, the seven magistrates will give their final count in the election and decide whether it was valid. While they have the power to annul the election, there are no signs they plan to do so.
“We are very calm, very sure,” Juan Camilo Mourino, who heads Calderon’s transition team, said Monday. “Tomorrow, Felipe Calderon will be president-elect.”
The court’s decision is final and cannot be appealed.
Lopez Obrador has already said he won’t accept the ruling and is moving forward with plans to establish a parallel government.
Hundreds of his supporters set up an overnight camp at the court’s headquarters late Monday, vowing to protest what they, too, expected to be a decision in favor of Calderon.
But Lopez Obrador barely made mention of the court’s ruling in his nightly address to followers in Mexico City’s historic central plaza, the Zocalo, focusing his remarks instead on his planned alternate government.
“We are continuing this route because they don’t want to respect the will of the people and because they want to rob the presidency from us,” he said.
“We can once and for all transform our country to cast aside this worn-out regime of corruption and privileges and establish the foundations of a republic in which the people will be the principal interest.”
