GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist presidential candidate in last Sunday’s elections, said Wednesday 4 July he would request a recount of ballots, claiming that his main opponent Enrique Peña Nieto had broken election rules.
Initial official results had put Peña Nieto in first place, with 38.15 percent, followed by Lopez Obrador with 31.64 percent. Final results are expected to be announced on Sunday.
Lopez Obrador claims Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) spent millions of pesos to buy votes and that the news media was biased toward the PRI.
The PRI governed Mexico for 71 years before losing the presidential election in 2000. Peña Nieto had said he would combat crime and drug trafficking which has eroded the standing of the current National Action Party government of Felipe Calderon.
In 2006, after losing the presidential election by a small margin to Calderon, Lopez Obrador called street protests, which lasted for months.
Links to other sources: The Globe and Mail, CNN, BBC
