Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the Mexico’s leftist presidential candidate, wants a vote-by-vote recount and has vowed to call street protests to back up his claim to victory if the numbers don’t turn out in his favor. A colored revoluci????n.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s left-wing presidential candidate wants every single vote recounted and is threatening to call street protests as he fights an election result giving a razor-thin victory to his conservative rival.

Senior aides to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a combative former mayor of Mexico City, said on Tuesday they want a recount of Sunday’s tight election to include every vote cast, not just the ballot returns reported by polling stations.

Lopez Obrador is first taking his challenge to election authorities but the aides said he could then bring out supporters to back his fight against results that just favour his ruling party rival, Felipe Calderon.

“We have full confidence that if the votes are counted, we will win the election,” Manuel Camacho Solis, the leftist’s main political operator, said.

Mexico now faces two months of legal wrangling over the results, and the threat of street protests has raised fears of political unrest in a young democracy that is key to U.S. interests over immigration, drug smuggling and security.

Left-wing militants remember a 1988 election when fraud was almost certainly robbed their candidate of victory and some are pushing Lopez Obrador to take his cause to the streets now.

“People don’t want negotiation, they don’t want us to accept the result but we have to guide the movement politically so it doesn’t end up in a greater confrontation,” Solis told Reuters.
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Lopez Obrador’s team says 3.5 million votes were not accounted for and refused to accept the preliminary numbers.

His Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, has a team of experts pulling together evidence of irregularities in Sunday’s vote.

But is this tactic necessary in Mexico?

I’ve got news for the PRD. This isn’t 1988. And this isn’t Ukraine. There will always be irregularities in any electoral system; even in the United States. But as Matthew Shugart, a well respected political scientist whose papers I have read and admire, said in the comments, “Mexico has a professional electoral dispute-resolution process that is the envy of the world. This will be a big test for it, but they are good and objective.” I simply just don’t see secret service agents poisoning presidential candidates, riot police beating voters, and exit polls off by more than 10%. I challenge him to find 3.2 million votes dumped down the drain. He’s appealing to a crowd that just doesn’t know better here.

Lopez Obrador is down by about 1%, or 400,000 votes based on the quick count. Official results won’t be out until today and then we’ll know for sure. Given the transparency of the process, with election observers and ballot counters being professional, along with party supporters being allowed to monitor polling stations, I doubt there will be substantial evidence of fraud and intimidation on the government’s part. And if there is, it will be handled by the independent electoral courts. Despite all the mudslinging, this is probably the cleanest election in Mexico’s history. If anything, it would be the PRI trying its best to do fraud.

It is hard to stress how little this situation warrants the same kind of action that took place in Ukraine. However, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Most of Lopez Obrador’s support is in the capital, and all colored revolutions have started in the capital. I would not doubt his ability to bring many people to the streets. He has a history of it. In fact, back in 1994 when he lost a governor’s race, he called for mass demonstrations and thousands of people closed down oil wells, clashed with police, and caused the government to shut down.

Yet I seriously doubt the Mexican state or people will allow the turning over of the election results through simple street protests. Its institutions are simply too strong for that and the winner’s mandate — just over 1/3 at best — too small. With both Lopez Obrador and Calderon declaring victory, thing can get pretty confusing. But given the much larger share of seats that the PAN party is winning in the congress, I’m putting my money in the market on Calderon. In the end, it will be whoever has the most votes, and the congressional race looks to be a good sign in his favor.

Revoluci????n? This isn’t 1910 either. There is no dictator-general, the PRI is gone, and Mexico is one of the most developed, powerful, and growing pluralist democracies in Latin America. If Lopez Obrador loses the official vote count, I think that despite any challenges he will eventually have to give up. In the very least, he can look forward to his party coming in second place in the congress, and with no clear majority in sight, being able to help craft legislation alongside the PAN, something that can only be good for Mexico.