Election has presented much changed to Mexicans

[CHIMO]

CONNIE WATSON:
Election has presented much changed to Mexicans

July 8, 2006

According to the numbers, Mexico has elected a new president.

Barely.

The difference between the conservative candidate from the governing party, Felipe Calderon, and his socialist rival, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is 243,934 votes, not a lot in a country where more than 41 million ballots were cast.

In a system where the candidate with the most votes wins, Calderon is the victor — but the battle isn't over yet.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/reportsfromabroad/watson/20060708.html

[MrPrax]

1. Another reason...

to get rid of the CBC: Connie Watson...propagandist.

She is their Latin American reporter that is more rightwing than the US state department...she did a hatchet job on Venezsuala and Haiti during their elections. Haiti complaint here

Also as they noted, her Afghanistan reports were terrible and an utter waste of time.

This is complete drivel and for those that want to defend the CBC -- please ask yourself this...If the CBC is simply going to provide the SAME perspective as any other outlet, then why are you paying for it?

This piece is typical of Fox news...

Orbrador is consistently labelled a 'leftist'? Just like Canada.com or the Washington Post or FOX

"The leftist has been called a "firebrand," a "Tropical Messiah" and a man who doesn't like to lose."

Did you really need the taxpayers to pay someone at the CBC to write this? You could read this in the National Post if you want.

He's already questioned one of Mexico's democratic institutions — the electoral authority — and there is fear he is willing to shakeup the country with protests and blockades.
or this...missing of course is the FACT that the IFE was set up BECAUSE of the widespread fraud of the 1988 election...
or the FACT that this is actually the first election that the IFE has run independently.

Or the Fact The IFE was for the last 50 years run by the Ministry of the Interior and was constitutionally for most of that time, manned by a member of the PRI.

Or How exactly is an 8 person board APPOINTED by their Congress a democratic institution? I guess that would make the Canadian Senate democratic as well

But this is unimportant to Connie.

Just like Connie wants to decry an election based on a divide between rich and poor in a country defined by rich and poor. Connie figures it's the middle class that Orbrador must appeal to in order to 'win'?

Brilliant insight and thanks Connie. Note this is also where Connie speculates about "protests and blockades". She smears him again later with the same accusation -- all speculation on her part.

But he has a reputation as a rabble-rouser who accuses Mexico's rich and powerful of wanting to keep their privileges instead of sharing the country's wealth with the poor.

That reputation won him a lot of support from those who want to shake up Mexico's traditional power structures.

But his right wing rival, Calderon, and Calderon's allies in the business community, used that same image to drive many middle-class voters away from Lopez Obrador.

Apparantly it is also the same image Connie got sold because, as noted, Orbrador is a 'firebrand', a 'leftist' or later in the piece,
"If Lopez Obrador ever wants to be president of Mexico he has to be pragmatic now. Rushing to the streets, calling for mass strikes or blockades will only cement his image of being an intolerant man who can't accept defeat."

Again Connie is speculating and accusing Orbrador of exactly what Calerone has accused him of fermenting. Connie is helping to cement this image of course. Apparantly legally challenging a vote with many many 'irregularities' is not being pragmatic.

Again with the middle class voters, if you notice. How she would KNOW that 'middle class' voters voted for Calderone is speculation (and claimed by PAN, which she never questions it) and utterly ridiculous since the vote was only '243,934' votes out of 41 million.

In fact, it's ideological and not supported at all by the election...but she seems to think this PAN claim is something to point out at least 2 twice. (well if PAN has it locked up, Connie, then why would you advise Orbrador to go and get it? -- could you be wrong?)

But Connie has no time for reports about ballots ending up at city dumps -- she missed them in Haiti as well.
Nor does Connie have time for the missing 3 million votes, where 2.5 million came back.
Nor is Connie interested in the exit polls or the fact that Orbrador was ahead most of the time.
Or interested in the tally sheets that didn't match the polls.
Or the well-documented shortage of ballots at border stations.
Or the fact the main computer went down during the count and surprise surprise Calerone was in the lead when they came back online...

No Connie has no time for any of this....'the firebrand', the mayor of Mexico City, which the elites tried to arrest and put into prison last year over a misdemenour, needs to do MORE pragmatic.

Note this dishonest ommission:

The northern half of the map is the blue of Calderon's National Action Party (PAN).
The southern half (including Mexico City) is the yellow of Lopez Obrador's PRD.

'including mexico city' makes it seem as if that was some fluke...well Orbrador was the MAYOR, so it would seem normal. Of course the North is less populated than the South, but Calerone still won by a handful of votes. No need for Connie to look any farther down this road, because all is well in the world and another neo-con was elected. Presumeably the southern half of Mexico and Mexico City have no middle classes either.

They're already exhausted from an election campaign so long and so nasty it turned many away from voting altogether (40 per cent of eligible voters didn't cast ballots). or they stood in long lines only to find out that there were no ballots of which CBC TV itself showed, which Connie didn't see I guess.

Or this qualifying line of BS:
(International election observers, to a person, have said they saw no evidence of fraud on election day.)

It took me three words and 2 seconds on Google to find this:

International observers frowning over election

MEXICO CITY — With this nation wrapped in uncertainty over who will be its next president, an international delegation of election observers is sounding concerns that Sunday's disputed vote has damaged the credibility of the country's electoral institutions.

In a country that still remembers when "electoral fraud" was synonymous with "election day," the inability of the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, to declare a winner on election night triggered memories of the 1988 vote that many believe was blatantly stolen by the then-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

This week, a group of observers from Texas, Canada and Japan found plenty of reason to worry about the close outcome.

"Electoral fraud in the form of coercion and vote-buying continues to be a problem in many areas of Mexico," stated a report by the group, one of several that had observers throughout the country.
San Antonio News Express

Of course anyone following this story at DU can find lots of comments by concerned international observers and a whole lot of reports of 'fraud'. But Connie has spoken and in a country of 100 million people she can declare 'to a person', no problems.

It's a lot of change for Mexicans to absorb.

What change is this? Fox and his PAN party won the last time, and they won again this time? What change needs to be absorbed? The status quo was maintained, obviously -- what idiotic drivel without any factual content whatsoever. Nothing is cited and all speculative. Do I have to pay for this?

This is Real Journalism©, folks...ain't it grand

Oh and on the CBC schtick again...

Eariler in the week on The Current covered the Mexican elections...when it came around to the topic of 'economic impact' of the Mexican elections, who did they interview for that uniquely diverse perspective...well none other than Tom 'deep integration' D'Aquino.

Now ask yourself -- when you think of the Mexican elections and a Canadian perspective, does Tom D'Aquino jump to mind as the 'go to' guy?

Now the fact that old Tom has NO problem getting his opinion out through the 'regular' media, doesn't seem to give the CBC much pause for thought these days. So much for that diversity of Canadian opinions. So much for covering perspectives that the private sector won't cover.

I am BTW a regular listener to the CBC for the past 20 years -- practically everyday I listen to World at Six and then AIH --and even I don't want to support them anymore...they are that bad.

/rant off