It isn't about Mexico's left and right

depending on who's counting, the mexican police or amlo's party, there were either 1.1M or 1.5M people gathered in the zocalo in mexico city yesterday...

[Andres Manuel] Lopez Obrador is asking the tribunal for two rulings that would stretch legal precedent. Publicly, he is calling for a recount of all 41 million votes in the hope of erasing his 244,000-vote deficit.

The motion also seeks a ruling that the President, Vicente Fox, tilted the playing field to favour Mr [Felipe] Calderon, the candidate of Mr Fox's conservative National Action Party. A favourable ruling on that motion would open the election to annulment and force a new one.

Mr Calderon's legal team is contesting both motions. By law, the tribunal, which is scheduled to begin hearing the case this week, must resolve the motions by August 31 and declare a winner by September 6.

The decision, and whether it is accepted by both parties, will be a critical test of whether Mexico can resolve disputes in a peaceful, legal manner rather than through the street demonstrations and backroom deals that settled close elections in the early 1990s. Ultimately, the choice could affect the stability of the country.

this may well be the deepest democratic and constitutional crisis ever faced by mexico... there will definitely be a next march and there will definitely be more people marching than came out for this one... anyone who characterizes what's happening as a contest between left and right is simply missing the point... it's all about the yawning gap between mexico's relatively few very rich and the masses of the very poor...

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