By Allan Wall
08/08/2006
Here in Mexico, the ongoing Post-Election Contention continues. Felipe Calderon won by only a quarter of a million votes, but Sore Loser Lopez Obrador continues to contest the election. Most of the protests are in Mexico City. They are non-violent, though quite inconvenient for the residents of that city.The electoral tribunal is scheduled to hand down the official result by September 6th. Hopefully things will wind down after that.
David Frum has a recent piece on the Mexican Post-Election Contention entitled "How Far Will Obrador Take This?".
The article is a pretty good overview of the situation, but requires some corrections.
Frum contrasts Al Gore’s acceptance of the 2000 Supreme Court decision with Lopez Obrador’s rejection of the Mexican Electoral Tribunal’s ruling on August 5th.
That’s a mistaken contrast. The Mexican Electoral Tribunal has not yet handed down its final ruling on the election. What it did on the 5th was declare a partial recount, of about 9% of the polling stations .
Frum also garbles the sequence of recent Mexican history. He says that the PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution) was formed in 2000, which is not correct, it was founded in 1989. Also, Lopez Obrador was not the party’s first leader.
Frum exaggerates apparent winner Felipe Calderon’s free-market credentials. Calderon is free-market by Mexican standards, but not by American standards. He has already promised NOT to privatize PEMEX, the state oil monopoly.
It’s more correct to call the losing candidate "Lopez Obrador", or "Lopez", rather than "Obrador".
This requires an explanation of Spanish surnames which you're not likely to get from mainstream media English-language writers. That’s because most of them don’t understand Spanish surnames . But that’s why VDARE.COM exists, to tell you what the mainstream media doesn’t.
In Spanish-speaking countries people have two official surnames, one from their father and the other from their mother. My official name in Mexico is "Allan Wall Dunlavy" because Dunlavy was my mother’s maiden name.
The surnames can be used in several ways. You can refer to a man using only his father’s surname (Pedro Gomez) or both surnames (Pedro Gomez Rodriguez) or with the paternal surname and the first initial of the maternal surname (Pedro Gomez R.). Officially though, he is not to be referred to as Pedro Rodriguez.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador should be referred to as Lopez, or Lopez Obrador, or, as he is commonly known, his initials, AMLO. (He’s also referred to as el Peje or Pejelagarto (Lizard Fish) and this nickname is not meant to be derogatory).
By the way, if you'd like to read my commentary on the contemporary Mexican scene, visit (and bookmark) my weekly column over at the Mexidata website (www.mexidata.info) . It’s updated on Sunday night or Monday morning.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.