- Gore v. Bush. Kerry v. Bush.
Obrador v. Calderon.
-
- As in Florida in 2000, as in Ohio in
2004, the exit polls show the voters voted for the progressive candidate,
but the race is "officially" too close to call.
-
- But they will call it -- after they steal
it. Reuters News agency reports that, as of 8pm Eastern time, as
voting concluded in Mexico, exit polls show Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
of the "left-wing" Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) leading
in exit polls over Felipe Calderon of the ruling conservative National
Action Party (PAN).
-
- We've told you again and again:
Exit polls tell us how voters say they voted, but the voters can't tell
pollsters if their vote will be counted. In Mexico, counting the
vote is an art, not a science -- and Calderon's ruling crew is very artful
indeed. The PAN-controlled
- official electoral commission, not surprisingly,
has announced that the presidential tally is too close to call.
-
- Calderon's election is openly supported
by the Bush Administration.
-
- On the ground in Mexico City, our news
team reports accusations from inside the Obrador campaign that operatives
of the PAN had access to voter files which are supposed to be the sole
property of the nation's electoral commission.
-
- We are not surprised.
-
- This past Friday, we reported that the
US Federal Bureau of Investigation had obtained Mexico's voter files under
a secret "counterterrorism" contract with database company ChoicePoint
of Alpharetta, Georgia. (See BUSH TEAM HELPS RULING PARTY "FLORIDIZE"
MEXICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION)
-
- The FBI's contractor states that, following
the arrest of ChoicePoint agents by the Mexican
- government, the company returned or destroyed
its files. The firm claims not to have known collecting this information
violated Mexican law. Such files can be useful in challenging a voter's
right to cast a ballot or in preventing that vote from counting.
-
- It is, of course, impossible to know
if the FBI destroyed its own copy of the files of Mexico's voter rolls
obtained by Choicepoint or if these were then used to illegally assist
the Calderon candidacy.
- But we can see the results: as
in the US, first in Florida then in Ohio, the exit polls are at odds with
"official" polls.
-
- In November 2004, US Republican Senator
Richard Lugar, in Kiev, cited the divergence of exit polls and official
polls as solid evidence of "blatant fraud" in the vote count
in Ukraine. As a result, the Bush Administration refused to recognize the
Ukraine government's official vote tally ... which proves once again that
Republicans are incapable
- of irony.
-
- The foreign mainstream press has already
announced, despite the polling discrepancies, that Mexico's elections were
fair and clean -- which would be a first for that country where Obrador's
party has seen its candidates defeated by "blatant fraud" before.
The change
- this time is that the fraud is simply
less blatant.
-
- ********
-
- Watch for our video reports from Mexico
City at www.GregPalast.com to be carried on Democracy Now!, with Amy Goodman,
this Wednesday, July 5. Rick Rowley, in Mexico City, contributed to this
report.
-
- Matt Pascarella is North American producer
for GregPalast.com. Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times
bestseller, "ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China
Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and
other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War." To unsubscribe
from future mailings please click here
|