Mexico Election Court to Rule on Recount Monday
Reuters
Sunday, August 27, 2006; 12:50 PM
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's electoral court will hold a public session Monday to give its verdict on a partial recount of votes in the July 2 presidential election, which leftists say was rigged against them.
The court will convene at 8 a.m. to give the results of the recount earlier this month at 9 percent of polling stations, a spokesman for the court said Sunday.
It was not clear whether the court also would give the revised vote count for the overall election, in which ruling party conservative Felipe Calderon came out ahead with a margin of some 244,000 votes out of 41 million cast.
Mexico has been in turmoil since the election, with leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador holding political rallies and sit-in protests in the capital to push for a full recount of every vote cast.
The electoral court is widely expected to reject Lopez Obrador's demand for a full recount and most analysts expect it eventually will confirm pro-business former energy minister Calderon as president-elect.
Lopez Obrador, a former Indian-rights activist who wants to overhaul Mexico's political and economic systems to favor the poor, has vowed to prevent Calderon taking office on Dec. 1.
He says that if Calderon is named president without a full recount, he will continue protests, which have caused traffic mayhem in Mexico City, and disrupt President Vicente Fox's Sept 1. state of the nation address to Congress.
He calls Fox, whose 2000 election win ended 71 years of one-party rule, a "traitor to democracy" and accuses the president of using public funds to help Calderon's campaign.
The electoral court must declare the country's new president by Sept. 6.
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