Videos, Doubts, and a Backlash in Mexico Vote

[Adelante]

Videos, Doubts, and a Backlash in Mexico Vote

By GINGER THOMPSON and JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: July 14, 2006

MEXICO CITY, July 13 — To an untrained eye, the scenes captured on video certainly looked like Mexico’s bad old days when votes were stolen instead of won. There was a man inside a polling station stuffing one vote after another into a ballot box.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the embattled leftist candidate for president, showed the video to a crowd of reporters on Monday morning and called it proof that poll workers had taken part in a conspiracy of fraud that robbed him of victory and handed it to his conservative rival, Felipe Calderón.

That night, the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, and Mr. López Obrador’s own representative at the polling station said Mr. López Obrador was misrepresenting the video. The tape, they said, showed a poll worker putting misplaced ballots where they belonged, a common procedure that was perfectly legal.

By then, however, doubt had already been planted. Mr. López Obrador has bet his political future that it will not take much to make that doubt grow into a national call for a recount in a country where rigging elections was once a kind of national pastime. His opponents in Mr. Calderón’s camp are betting people will see things the way they do: that the only one playing dirty these days is Mr. López Obrador.

-more

This story's been all over the Mexican press and TV the past couple of days. I wonder, if you were a low paid worker serving at your local polling place in a presidential election in the US and the Republican candidate showed a videotape of you on 80-foot screens, which was then flashed all over the world accusing you of corruption and then hundreds of websites posted your picture accusing you of stuffing ballots and on big sites like DU (or Free Republic) your picture and name were dragged through the mud day after day after day, even after the Republican Party (in your case) of your state, as has the PRD in Guanajuato State of Mexico, DEBUNKED the validity of their candidate's interpretation of your actions on the videotape - would you feel you are the victim of character assassination?

Narco News was wrong. Greg Palast was wrong. Counter Punch was wrong. Most of all, AMLO was wrong.

Put yourself in this story and you may feel just how wrong it is for DUers to continue promoting this false story. Don't believe everything you fucking read just because you want a stolen election in Mexico. If it was stolen, it will be proven by AMLO in court, not in the Zócalo on 80-foot screens. This is a career politician at work, not God Almighty.

Flame away. :)

[Igel]

1. People saw and believed what they wanted to see and believe.

There was no critical thinking involved. Obrador said the video was X, and many said, Yes, Lord, I believe.

The idea that PRD's and PRI's reps were there and didn't interfere didn't strike people as strange; that stuffing a delegate's box doesn't mean the president's box was stuffed; that there might be legitimate reasons for putting multiple votes in a box didn't occur to people. (BTW, I've seen precisely that occur in Los Angeles--a bunch of us finished punching our cards at once, had to get to class, and all dropped off our ballots with the poll worker in charge of actually placing them in the box almost at the same time. She--a old, Japanese neighbor--put half a dozen ballots in the box at once. The photo would have been damning. The reality wasn't.)

Only the claim that supported what we wanted to believe was possibly correct. Critical thinking is the enemy of confirmation bias. You can't like both.

On edit: This does not mean that Obrador is wrong; just that the only evidence for the interpretation of the video that seemed to prevail is now gone.

[Adelante]

5. AMLO was wrong about the video

I am open-minded about who won or didn't win the election. It's just too close for me, so I want the recount. But AMLO himself has said he had no evidence for the claims he made about the man in the blue shirt, and I call bullshit on his using this person in the way he did and on accusing his own people of taking bribes, such as the factory worker who represented him at this casilla in Guanajuato, without a shred of evidence to back it up. More than that, I call bullshit on DUers who should know better than take any politician's word at face value. We know better.

[RB TexLa]

2. Lopez Obrador seem to want riots even before the election

Those old PRI guys don't take to reform and not having iron fist rule very well.

[Adelante]

6. I'm not sure how many DUers understand

"Those old PRI guys" are the same ones who fucked the 1988 election. Mexican politics are never simple, never clear, and easy to obscure in rhetoric. I was for AMLO going into the election and thought, with reservations, all things considered, maybe Mexico needed a tug. But one of my reservations was exactly the kind of people high in his campaign. It's creepy. At this point, I don't care especially about either candidate as much as I care about the integrity of the Mexican elections system.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Brought to you by the people who brought you the Iraq war.

Interesting that you would hide the source.

[Adelante]

4. I don't "hide" anything

For those who don't click through the link, the source is

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Happy now? :eyes:


However, almost any Mexican newspaper or news channel had it first.

You should see that sinister fellow on TV without the ballot box. He looks just like what he is, a country school teacher.