Mexico: The New Florida?

Last Sunday Mexico held a fiercely contested election, resulting in a razor thin margin between the center-left candidate, former Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and former Mexican Secretary of Energy, conservative Felipe Calderon. In the last few weeks of the campaign negative advertisements littered the Mexican airwaves. Calderon even hired Clinton-basher Dick Morris to help coordinate his campaign.

Watching the results come in Wednesday night, (yes I have too much time on my hands) early on it looked like Lopez Obrador was headed towards victory. But by early Thursday morning, the remaining 20% of the vote or so, went heavily to Calderon and a third candidate in the race. By the end of the count Calderon was ahead by 0.58%.

Yesterday a crowd of close to 300,000 gathered in Mexico City to demand a recount. More protests and marches are planned across Mexico next week. Ronald Klain, general counsel for the Gore Recount Committee, using lessons learned from 2000, offered his advice for the Mexican center-left candidate:

For Lopez Obrador, the clock is ticking loudly. If he wants to keep his candidacy alive, he must take decisive -- and quite divisive -- action. He must bring meaningful and documented claims of fraud in the election. He must call his supporters to the streets and question the legitimacy of the vote casting and counting process. He must demand that, notwithstanding Mexican law, every ballot be recounted, by hand, to ensure an accurate tally. Above all, he must reject any suggestion that Calderòn received more votes -- indeed, he must insist that any fair count would show that he is the rightful winner.

For the sake of Mexico's democracy, a fair and timely recount of the votes should be in order.