Remember Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador? The Obragore of Mexico? Today Mexico’s election arbitrators told him to get lost.
Mexico’s electoral tribunal making its ruling on July 2’s election
Source: AFP, via Yahoo! News
Today the Mexican electoral tribunal ruled that there was no cheating in Mexico’s July 2 presidential election, and all of his 300-plus claims of irregularities were baseless. And that means free-market Felipe Calderon has won the presidential election and will take office in December.
Source: AFP, via Yahoo! News
So much for the AMLO tent camp protests, the bank blockades, the blocked roads from Monterrey to Nuevo Laredo where 40% of Mexico’s U.S. trade takes place, the trashing of the tourism industry, the clogged Mexico City streets … the garbage, the litter and the mess. It was all for naught. The tribunal ruled that there was no 2-million-person-strong conspiracy to keep the far-left candidate from the halls of Montezuma after all. There only was the rule of law combined with the will of the people, and today that dynamite alchemy has won.
This truly highlights Mexico’s strengthening political institutions and is a big victory for Mexico’s democracy. Instead of winning by protest and political pressure, as had been the way of the past, Mexico won by having a real democracy.
Mexico today has warded off a potential dictator who had intended to seize power through street intimidation and it has opted instead for the rule of law, preset and agreed upon by all parties BEFORE the election, as its model of governance.
This means democracy has triumphed in Mexico after a long hot testing summer of protests and Mexicans can rightly be proud of it.
AMLO has threatened street protests forever, but his people have got to be tired, they have been protesting for more than a month, and they’ve gotten no results. I kind of doubt it will happen, even if AMLO refuses to concede the election for as long as he lives. Look how tired AMLO looks in this picture here:
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador greets supporters at a tent camp on Aug. 6
Source: AFP, via Yahoo! News
The bottom line – if you want to win elections, you have to win votes in real elections, not show how big a mob you can gather as evidence of your fitness to hold office. The Mexican electoral tribunal was under huge pressure to just cave in to AMLO, as has been done in the past, and they held fast and overcame it, an amazing and historic feat. They weren’t scared!
Other nations in Latin America will also be strengthened by this, they will see the example, they will be influenced by it, so it’s really a victory for everyone. Just watch – we will see a strengthening of institutions all around the hemisphere now, based on Mexico’s example. It’s too great an example to ignore.
And here’s something else we will see: altered perceptions of what Mexico is in the U.S., something that should strengthen America’s resolve to make its border situation orderly. After all, if Mexico is not such a bad place anymore, there will be fewer people seeking their fortune outside of it, and there will be more reasons to ship illegal immigrant lawbreakers back to Mexico, knowing as we do, full well, that Mexico is not such a bad place, it’s well worth living in, based on what we have seen of this election.
Mark at Mark in Mexico has two good posts on this victory of Felipe Calderon and Mexico’s democracy from his redoubt in Oaxaca, Mexico. Read them here and here.
UPDATE: Do they look like they’re gonna keep protesting on AMLO’s behalf forever?
One more time with feeling, amigos
AMLO’s babes of politics
Source, all photos: AFP, via Yahoo! News
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