‘The Specter of Fraud and the Fear of Violence’

Ray Suarez of PBS: Man on the scene
Item: Entre el fantasma del fraude y el miedo a la violencia (La Nacion, Argentina).

Item: Sube bolsa mexicana tras elecciones presidenciales (AP Spanish / El Heraldo, Miami )

It was a bit creepy, I thought, to see PwC “political risk” affiliate The Eurasia Group featured so prominently as a go-to analyst of the Mexican elections in several major news outlets, especially given disturbing reports about the activities of “political risk” consultancy Kroll in Brazil.

“Preemptive political risk management” is itself a controversial and politically risky approach to the analysis of public policy and foreign affairs right now, I would venture to say — diaboli advocate.

Four talking points seemed to stand out out in the mainstream coverage, in order of volume: That the peso and the stock market boomed on news of PAN’s slim advantage (AP); (2) that the election was “a clear choice between populism and markets”; (3) that “it’s not who wins, but the integrity of the process and political stability that matter”; and (4) “Quiet victories for Bush administration in Mexico.”

All of which seem a little premature, don’t you think?

MEXICO – La Bolsa Mexicana de Valores subió el lunes luego que los resultados preliminares de las elecciones presidenciales del domingo daban una ligera ventaja a un candidato conservador sobre su rival de izquierda.

El Indice de Precios y Cotizaciones (IPC), que agrupa los 35 títulos principales del mercado, ganó 4,8% o 913,65 puntos, para colocarse en 20.060,82. El volumen de operaciones fue de 175,5 millones de acciones, por 4.570 millones de pesos (403 millones de dólares).

El peso ganó 2,2% para colocarse en 11,1055 frente al dólar, en comparación con los 11,3475 registrados al cierre del viernes.

Los resultados preliminares de 98% de más de 130.000 puestos de votación en el país daban a Felipe Calderón, del Partido Acción Nacional, que gobierna el país, un 36,4% de los sufragios, en comparación con 34,4% para Andrés Manuel López Obrador del Partido de la Revolución Democrática.

That’s a full two-point advantage, by the way, not the one-point advantage being reported on various boob tube channels this morning. The last hard number I saw was 1.6% — which does round up to 2%.

Of all the analysis I’ve read from Google News Mexico and other Latin American news, views and celebrity boozehound aggregators, this take by the consistently high-quality La Nacion strikes me as most independent-minded, informative and realistic.

There was tremendous pressure on the efforts of the federal election authorities to keep the election clean, they write, given that both of the leading contenders waged what amounted to total information warfare.

Their narration of the campaign notes that both camps have brazenly worked to usurp the fragile public trust in the election commission since the announcement that the results would be deferred — Calderon waving a piece of paper and saying that his numbers don’t lie, for example — and provides more background from the history of the campaign season.

It does seem pretty clear to me from my scanning of the headlines that the Mexican press is currently divided between praise for an atmosphere of calm and order that may not exist and talk of a political crisis.

Fear may indeed be a more realistic response than a hope-fueled bull market. Indeed, the efficient markets hypothesis only tends to deepen the suspicion that the fix is in here.

Para muchos seguidores de López Obrador, la derrota, sin embargo, tendría razones mejor conocidas: fraude, sin importar que el PRI ya no es gobierno, que el Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE) acumuló prestigio en los últimos años y que más de 600 observadores internacionales convalidaron la transparencia del proceso.

“Yo creo que ganó López Obrador. Barrios enteros votaron por él. Van a hacer trampa […]; algo están tramando, y creo que se están burlando del pueblo. Ojalá que la gente se levante hasta con armas en contra de eso”, dice Francesca Contreras, mientras limpia su puesto en un mercado de comida. “Para mí, hay fraude. No es justo”, añade.

López Obrador tampoco ayudó a calmar los ánimos en las horas que siguieron al cierre de las urnas. “¡Que nos quieren escamotear el resultado electoral!”, clamó, mientras sus seguidores arengaban bajo la lluvia torrencial: “¡Duro! ¡Duro! ¡Duro! ¡Duro!”.

El ex alcalde de esta ciudad sabe de qué se trata perder en las planillas lo que ganó en las urnas. Lo sufrió en 1994, cuando compitió con el ahora candidato del PRI para presidente, Roberto Madrazo, por la gobernación de Tabasco. Eso lo marcó y desde entonces, según cuentan biógrafos y analistas como Enrique Krauze y George Grayson, busca razones escondidas en todo lo que ocurre y le perjudica.

El aparente ganador, Felipe Calderón, también alimentó las sospechas en las últimas horas. Durante la campaña, el equipo de López Obrador denunció que su cuñado tenía ciertos contactos con las autoridades electorales. Aunque luego se aclaró el entuerto, muchos votantes recordaron aquella campaña negativa al ver los festejos anticipados del candidato oficialista.

“Olvidémonos de lo que dijo Calderón o del medio millón de votos de ventaja que dice tener López Obrador”, planteó ayer Sergio Aguayo, un respetado analista político, tras escuchar las proclamas victoriosas, y peligrosas, de ambos. “Habrá que esperar a lo que digan las planillas”, insistió.

In general, then, I thought Christine Ockrent’s point in the Washington Post was right on target:

If every election in countries where there is a widening gap between the rich and the poor is labeled as a choice between “populism” and “markets”, democracy is bound to fail. Only by promoting policies to improve the fate of the poor and encouraging the private sector to create jobs and wealth can Mexico develop – and find its own remedies to the illegal labour exodus to the U.S.

Ray Suarez of PBS was talking last evening, for example, about a looming issue with selective disqualification of some 500,000 to 750,000 votes, for example, which he likened to the “hanging chad” controversy in Florida.

Other sources — or was it Ray? I’m winging this — cite tactical strikes by unions in key “battleground” states, timed to coincide with the polling.

And the Argentine paper raises an issue of Calderon’s family ties with an election official, a conflict of interest raised by the opposition, though La Nacion describes that issue as “having been clarified.”

I’d like to know who the key political consultants were in this election, and where they learned their trade. Because the techniques seem awfully familiar.
Unfortunately, these alleged facts trickle in from disparate sources, buried well below the lede. Is it too much to ask, when you cover an election that no one pays attention to until the voting, to present a detailed timeline of campaign events and issues?

Like this informative post from Global Voices Online, for example.

Otherwise, it’s hard to make sense of the declaration that “political risk” is under control in an electorate apparently so sharply divided — and an indigenous peasant insurgency still capable of mobilizing for more radical action in Oaxaca …

I would count the potential for having to do a Fujimori-style “Splinter Cell” job on Subcomandante Marcos as a tangible political risk to be accounted for, unless you think you can keep it out of the papers and off cable TV news this time.

We all remember Cheney declaring a “mandate” for Bush after the closely contested 2004 election. and using that as a basis for continuing to lock out the political opposition.

Has that brought stability and mitigated the “political risk” to business in this country, and in transatlantic trade relations?

I think that’s a fair question. I guess we will soon see, won’t we?