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Mexicans stage huge poll protest
(BBC News, 17 July 2006)
Mexico's defeated presidential candidate has urged his supporters to use acts of "civil resistance" to press demands for a full recount of the vote. . . . Mr Lopez Obrador has alleged that there was electoral fraud in the 2 July poll. . . . Results show his conservative opponent Felipe Calderon won by a margin of only 0.57 of a percentage point. . . . Mr Lopez Obrador told supporters he vowed to start civil resistance to force a recount. . . . "To defend democracy we are going to begin peaceful civil resistance," the leader of the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) told the crowd gathered in the Zocalo, the main public square in the capital. . . . He did not give details but said what he called a citizens' committee would meet this week to work out what form this resistance would take. . . . Mr Lopez Obrador, a former mayor of Mexico City, also called on people to stage another rally in the capital on 30 July. . . . Supporters and party activists dressed mainly in yellow, the PRD colours, walked several kilometres with shouts of "vote by vote, ballot box by ballot box". . . . Police officials in the city government said about a million people took part in Sunday's protest . . . Mr Lopez Obrador has presented some 900 pages of alleged evidence of electoral irregularities to the Federal Electoral Tribunal, which must make a ruling by 6 September.

posted by LoZo 11:08 AM