"We Are Willing to Fight and Die for Independence"

From ZNET

"WE ARE WILLING TO FIGHT AND DIE FOR INDEPENDENCE!"

The potential for the situation to turn violent has clearly shocked people. The intensity of the moment is seen in the words PRD deputy Emilio Serrano offers to the gathered crowd, "We are willing to die for the cause for independence!' he yells, "For freedom and democracy in Mexico! In 1968 the students were willing to die and the Mexican army massacred them. We are also willing to die!" he says looking back at the police line, "we will die on the line, don't you think so comrades?" 'Yes!' yells back the crowd.

Later I asked Obrador if he is worried that his actions have isolated some of his supporters. He paused before answering, "Yes, but it's the price that I have to pay because these measures are well seen by a many people. It's the only way we have to make them listen."

The morning after the clashes, police water tanks are deployed in the streets surrounding the Congress building and hundreds of federal police patrol the streets.

I asked Obrador how this movement would be remembered in Mexico's history. "Mexicans are no longer willing to accept the humiliation and fraud," he replies. "The country has to change because from this movement, transformations are beginning to be born. The guys in power are going to see themselves forced to change some things. They're no longer going to be able to keep on doing things the same way in this country," he tells me firmly.

Mexico City is on edge as everybody waits for the Electoral Tribunal to announce its decision. It remains to be seen where this new movement is going but it seems that whatever happens, Mexico will be very unstable and divided in the near future.

There's a long and detailed interview with Leftist PRD candidate Andrés Manual Lopez Obrador over at ZNET who is, well quite possibly, leading a civil revolt in Mexico and deservedly so. By the way if you haven't gotten this yet: elites in other countries have noticed the wonderful results from Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 and have exported them to Mexico and other countries to be named later. Despite the nonviolence pushed by Obrador I truly think this will turn violent. And frankly, I think if you're going to fight and die for something, as opposed to oil company revenues, then democracy is certainly worth fighting and dying for.

As someone who watched Kerry not even take the election to the courts--where, as is evident now, its quite clear that he had an even better case than Gore--this is amazing. Imagine a candidate who fights for the public interest. Just astonishing. You can actually do this. Who knew.

I root for them and their struggle for justice. Why do I believe them? Because if you win legitimately you're okay with recounts. The Ruling Party refuses a full recount. Honestly now let's put two and two together. That's always the Chavez retort by the way: go count the ballots. (That's why we know Chavez won fair and square.)

I'll be excerpting this over the next several days but here are the best bits:

On the International Observer question:

PAN has claimed that the elections were clean because of the presence of international election observers. However, the 673 election observers only oversaw a fraction of the country's 130 thousand polling stations and one of the international observer groups, Global Exchange, has documented possible cases of vote-buying by the PAN and PRI political parties, illegal confiscations of voter ID cards and ballot shortages at certain polling stations.

So why is the majority of the press repeating that the presence of international observers ensured that the election was clean and fair? "It was the electoral tribunal itself that put out that press release about the observer's," Global Exchange President Ted Lewis told me. "We were really annoyed with them when they did that. And about two thirds of the other observers were diplomats who are not allowed to make public comments."

Now, this looks familiar: scientists smell a rat:

There's also an interesting theory that has emerged concerning the timing of results as announced by the Federal Electoral Institute. Victor Romero is a Doctor of physics who specialises in statistics and randomness at the National University of Mexico. He studied the electoral commission computer results closely and he believes there is strong evidence of interference.

Dr Romero explained to me a very unusual statistical pattern he noticed with the PRD vote as the tallies came into towards the end. "The PRD was winning and then suddenly at about 70% they start losing and never even gained .01 of a percentage," he explained. It seems incredible that as the last 30% of results came in, the PRD share of votes never increased. "It could be like this and then like that," Dr Romero explains, moving his hands up and down, "More of one party and less than another. But not in order. The order here is completely unexplainable."

This physics specialist is talking about something a lot more sinister than stuffing ballots. "There is a possibility statistically speaking, very strong, that there was an interference with the computer system of the IFE that made the counting of the votes," Dr Romero concludes.

Once again, public perception isn't helped by the fact that Calderon's brother in law has a contract for computer management systems at the electoral commission. Dr Romero's work and similar studies by others have gained quite a following on the Internet but remain largely ignored by the mainstream Mexican media.(Editor's note: kind of like here in the United States.)

Then there's some interesting commentary about the role of the Mainstream Mexican Media which sounds familiar:

The national Mexican Television networks, Televisa and TV Azteca seem to have an unusual penchant for in-depth reporting of weather conditions rather than disputed presidential elections. The left wing newspaper La Jornada is one of the only outlets that regularly publishes and investigates PRD's claims of fraud. (Editor's Note: Let me guess the Jon Benet story was big there too right?)

I asked Obrador why the Mexican Television was like this? He laughed out loud at my question. "It's because they are a part of the group that dominates the country. They don't want for a change to happen," he said, " The media is very powerful. Behind the media are the owners of the media. They're the richest men in Mexico."

Read the whole thing.