Pena Nieta confirmed as Mexico poll winner
Source: Agencies |
July 7, 2012, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE official vote count in Mexico's presidential election concluded yesterday with results showing a 6.62-percent victory for Enrique Pena Nieto, the presidential candidate seeking to return the former autocratic ruling party to power after a 12-year hiatus.
The count by the country's electoral authority, which included a ballot-by-ballot recount at more than half of polling places, showed Pena Nieto getting 38.21 percent of votes, while his closest rival, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, got 31.59 percent.
Josefina Vazquez Mota of the conservative National Action Party got 25.41 percent of votes cast in last Sunday's elections, and the small New Alliance Party got 2.29 percent, barely passing the two-percent barrier needed to preserve the party's place on future ballots.
The final vote count must be certified in September by the Federal Electoral Tribunal. The tribunal has declined to overturn previously contested elections, including a 2006 presidential vote that was far closer than last Sunday's.
The results, showing an edge of roughly 3.33 million votes for Pena Nieto out of roughly 50.3 million valid ballots, will almost certainly become the target of legal challenges by Lopez Obrador. He alleges that Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, engaged in vote-buying that illegally tilted millions of votes.
The claims began surfacing in June, but sharpened early this week as thousands of people rushed to grocery stores on the outskirts of Mexico City to redeem pre-paid gift cards worth about 100 pesos (US$7.50). Many said they got the cards from PRI supporters before elections.
Simply giving away such gifts is not illegal under Mexican law, as long as the expense is reported to electoral authorities.
The count by the country's electoral authority, which included a ballot-by-ballot recount at more than half of polling places, showed Pena Nieto getting 38.21 percent of votes, while his closest rival, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, got 31.59 percent.
Josefina Vazquez Mota of the conservative National Action Party got 25.41 percent of votes cast in last Sunday's elections, and the small New Alliance Party got 2.29 percent, barely passing the two-percent barrier needed to preserve the party's place on future ballots.
The final vote count must be certified in September by the Federal Electoral Tribunal. The tribunal has declined to overturn previously contested elections, including a 2006 presidential vote that was far closer than last Sunday's.
The results, showing an edge of roughly 3.33 million votes for Pena Nieto out of roughly 50.3 million valid ballots, will almost certainly become the target of legal challenges by Lopez Obrador. He alleges that Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, engaged in vote-buying that illegally tilted millions of votes.
The claims began surfacing in June, but sharpened early this week as thousands of people rushed to grocery stores on the outskirts of Mexico City to redeem pre-paid gift cards worth about 100 pesos (US$7.50). Many said they got the cards from PRI supporters before elections.
Simply giving away such gifts is not illegal under Mexican law, as long as the expense is reported to electoral authorities.
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