This Week in the Americas

Mexico's Dramatic Vote Count Lacks Credibility
By Laura Carlsen

Mexico's official vote count unfolded more like a suspense novel than an electoral process yesterday. Commentators and common citizens sat poised at television or computer screens as Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s two-and-a-half point lead gradually dwindled until—at four in the morning—the conservative candidate, Felipe Calderón, pulled ahead. The final tally showed an unbelievably thin margin of just over half a percentage point.

The operative word here is “unbelievable.” López Obrador´s Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and large parts of the population have publicly questioned the results. In a morning press conference, López Obrador announced he will challenge the vote count in the Electoral Tribunal. “We cannot accept these results,” he stated, citing “numerous irregularities—to put it mildly.”

Laura Carlsen directs the Americas Program of the International Relations Center, online at www.irc-online.org.

Latin American Immigrants Struggle for Fair Immigration Reform
By Oscar Chacón

The threat that the U.S. Congress could approve something so reactionary as bill H.R. 4437 has had a detonator effect on a new era of community mobilization where the immigrant community, mainly of Latin American origin, has decided not to remain silent. The demonstrations of civic participation in the last 12 weeks announce the beginning of a rebirth in the struggle for political, economic, social, and cultural rights of large segments of American society, a process in which the immigrant communities will play an active role.

In the short term, the most important impact of the community marches has been the alteration of the legislative debate in the U.S. Senate. Specifically, the community marches made viable the consideration of a proposal that at least conceptually included the legalization of a segment of the immigrant population that lacks authorization. The result of the legislative debate in the Senate, even after the massive marches, is very far from the expectations of immigrant communities. Independently of what is approved by the Senate, the bill will have to be reconciled with H.R. 4437.

Oscar A. Chacón is Director of Enlaces América, a project of the Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights in Chicago, IL, and member of the Executive Committee of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC). He is an immigration analyst for the IRC Americas Program at www.americaspolicy.org.

The United States and Cuba: Strands of a Failed Policy
By Mavis Anderson

Justice cannot be done to the United States’ complicated relationship with our island neighbor, Cuba, in a short article. It can, however, point out some of the difficulties in the relationship that highlight a policy that doesn't work and is inhumane to both Cubans and Americans. This article looks at several strands that are emblematic of the whole failed policy and the rancor with which the United States government (but not the majority of our people) treats Cuba and those U.S. citizens who seek to engage with Cuba.

Just as this article was going to print, the Department of State made public its second report to the President from Bush’s Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. In fact, a bootlegged copy had been circulating for about a week before the announcement, so its content was no secret. Having just read the approximately 85-page advance document, presented under the names of Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State, as chair, and Carlos Gutierrez, Secretary of Commerce, as co-chair, it is appropriate to add a few words in summary and response.

Mavis Anderson is Senior Associate at the Latin America Working Group at www.lawg.org and a contributor to the IRC Americas Program, online at www.americaspolicy.org.

Letters from our Readers

Re: Mexican Elections coverage

I want to congratulate you for your unbiased coverage of Mexican elections. There are few in this country that are truly informing with objectivity and you are right, Televisa and mainstream newspapers are contributors to the PAN's strategy of silencing public outcry to question results and demand transparency.

Here is the latest effort: last Sunday at the informative rally in the Zocalo recordings were disclosed that show Elba Esther Gordillo talking cynically about “selling” the PRI vote to the PAN on election day. The same PRI Governor that agreed with Gordillo on this and offered to talk with his “neighbors” on Monday received thanks for his efforts from Fox's cabinet member Pedro Cerisola.

It is a shame media is not covering this clear association to commit electoral fraud. Tamaulipas governor has said he has been misinterpreted but can hardly expect that anyone with a brain will not question the conversation … that is unless the media tries to silence this piece of evidence AGAIN. Gordillo has declared today that yes, it's her voice but that it's just “politics.” They try to brush off criticism with frivolous excuses when the main part is that these people are electoral criminals and that they should be subject to justice.

The media has bought without questions that “the North” went to Calderon. If electoral fraud committed by PRI governors is proved then that argument would not stand. I myself come from the North—I am not poor, nor ignorant—and I voted for Lopez Obrador because I believe in his project. I convinced many friends and family to do so as well and we are all terribly upset of what the government and the PAN are attempting to do.

In any developed country a recording of this nature would entail serious questioning. People would go to jail. In Mexico, the media is attempting at covering it up while authorities look the other way. It appears that some members of the international press are also falling in line with this idea, Mexican politics are dirty, elections have been tainted, there appears to be an authoritarian regression … but none of this matters if the candidate of the right is made president.

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