Mexican Troubles – American ParadigmsMaimon Schwarzschild

Mexico’s electoral court has ruled against leftist Manuel Lopez Obrador, dismissing his objections to the presidential election in which he was narrowly defeated in a three-way race last June.  The court ruling virtually ensures that Felipe Calderon, leader of Mexico’s centre-right party, will become President.

Lopez Obrador and his supporters have been holding street demonstrations for weeks in Mexico City and elsewhere against the results, and now threaten to declare themselves the “legitimate” government of Mexico and to try to “rule from the streets”, including (of course) collecting their own “taxes”.  Yesterday they forcibly prevented President Fox from delivering his valedictory State of the Union speech to the Mexican Congress.  The city of Oaxaca is already close to anarchy, paralysed by a radical teachers’ union who are leading violent demonstrations and boycotts against the state government —  the disputes there not (yet) directly about the national election.

It’s impossible not to wonder how much anti-Americans like Lopez Obrador tend to imitate American trends: in this case, non-acceptance of election results.  In the US, it’s not just Al Gore whom leftists around the world might emulate. John Kerry too has recently been more than implying that the 2004 election was somehow stolen from him; and conspiracy theories — e.g. about voting machines in Ohio — evidently abound among the Democratic “nutroots”.

But Mexico’s democratic institutions are a lot more fragile than those of the US, and Mexico has a history of horrific political violence.  Millions died in the early-20th century civil wars in Mexico.  A demagogue like Lopez Obrador could portend far worse for Mexico than the claims by Gore, Kerry, and their enthusiasts in the US who (verbally, in their case) don’t accept elections they don’t win.

Meanwhile, American media reports about Mexico have a way of citing academics whose sympathies are all too predictable.  The Los Angeles Times quotes a Mexico City law professor called John M. Ackerman, who professes himself “surprised by the swiftness of Monday’s [court] decision”  and “concerned that the tribunal did not provide more details of its findings.”  Actually, the electoral court has been in intensive session for many weeks over Lopez Obrador’s claims, and this week is the legal deadline for the court’s decision.

Here in San Diego, the San Diego Union Tribune, reporting the Mexican electoral court decision, offers up George Greyson, “a Mexico scholar at the College of William & Mary”.  Says Professor Greyson of the Mexican court: “They’re letting people know that they’re just going to deal with numbers and statistics. They’re not going to invalidate the election based on the broader issue of unfairness.”  We aren’t told what the “broader issue of unfairness” might be, except perhaps that it’s always unfair when the leftist loses.

There’s so much from America for anti-Americans around the world to live up to.

UPDATE:  The Los Angeles Times “news analysis” has now moved on into undisguised cheerleading for Lopez Obrador and his “revolution” against democratic institutions in Mexico.