AMLO levels the opposition

In announcing the result of the rapid count carried out by [Mexico’s] National Electoral Institute (INE) on Sunday, presidential adviser Lorenzo Cordova declared Andrés Manuel López Obrador, of the Juntos Haremos Historia (Together We Will Make History) coalition, winner with a total vote count of between 53 and 53.8 percent. 

In a message broadcast on national television, Cordova pointed out that according to the rapid count in 7,787 polling stations across the country, the presidential candidate of the alliance Front For Mexico, Ricardo Anaya, received between 22.1 and 22.8 percent, placing him second in the presidential race.

According to the results of the INE rapid count, José Antonio Meade, the candidate who ran under the All for Mexico Alliance, came in third receiving between 15.7 and 16.3 percent of the vote.  

Finally, independent candidate Jaime Rodríguez Calderón received between 5.3 and 5.5 percent of the presidential vote.

Cordova said that the rapid count is a voting projection based on information the workbooks of the voting booths, official documents of the INE, that is to say, of the votes actually deposited in the ballot boxes, a reason for the great difference disparity with the exit surveys that are based on the declaration voters given to pollsters.

The INE president said that the projections of citizen participation was estimated to be between 62.9 and 63.8 percent of the total of the country’s 89 million registered voters and thereby calling it a successful day.

During his announcement, Cordova clarified that both the projections of the rapid count and the information of the Preliminary Electoral Results Program (PREP) are not official results, only preliminary, which will be announced on Thursday after all the votes from the 300 electoral districts are counted. 

However, according to past experience of the PREP and the rapid count, both have a very high degree of accuracy with respect to the official result that emerges from these computations.

Cordova took the opportunity to recognize the participation of the 1.4 million polling station officials that carried out the scrutiny and computation of the slightly more than 156,000 polling places that were installed throughout the country. He called the election this Sunday a civic party in which millions of citizens went out to vote freely, massively and in peace.

He said that with the influx of voters, Mexican society endorsed its plurality and diversity in obtaining public office. Now we have to be at the height of this exemplary democratic exercise. Historical challenges must be faced with full respect for the sovereign will.

Most of the information for this article taken from Mexico’s La Jornada and written by Alonso Urrutia and Néstor Jiménez. Translation by Progreso Weekly.