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 News from Around the Americas | July 2006 
Expatriate Mexicans Worry About Election
 Peter Prengaman - Associated Press
| | A supporter of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) demonstrate as he waits for the official results outside the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) during the final count of the Mexican presidential election in Mexico City early Thursday, July 6, 2006. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias) |
Many expatriate Mexicans who supported Felipe Calderon weren't celebrating after the conservative presidential candidate was declared winner.
Instead, they worried that the refusal of leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to accept the official results could spark violent protests back home.
"Calderon might have won, but the people have lost," said Roxana Escarcega, 35, a massage therapist in Los Angeles who cast an absentee ballot for Calderon. "Many won't trust the results, and that could create problems."
Absentee voting was low among expatriates, who were allowed to cast ballots for the first time in a presidential election. Of the estimated 4.2 million eligible Mexican voters living abroad, only about 41,000 — or 1 percent — requested absentee ballots. Of the 32,632 valid absentee ballots mailed to the Federal Electoral Institute, 28,335 were from the United States.
More than 58 percent of absentee voters worldwide supported Calderon, whose razor-thin victory was announced Thursday by Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute. However, the official declaration of a president-elect must come from the Federal Electoral Tribunal, which has until Sept. 6 to announce results.
Lopez Obrador alleged widespread fraud and vowed to challenge the results in court. He has already called for massive demonstrations Saturday in Mexico City.
Many Hispanic activists in Southern California supported Lopez Obrador as a champion of the poor and were also organizing protests.
"We need to do what we can on this side of the border to make sure this stolen election doesn't go unchallenged," said Armando Navarro, coordinator of the National Alliance for Human Rights, which had organized caravans to Tijuana for Mexicans to vote.
Many expatriates were concerned about how Calderon would approach the issue of immigration reform in the United States.
Outgoing President Vicente Fox had pressured American lawmakers in recent months for reforms that would give millions of Mexicans living in the United States illegally a chance at legal residency. But he was sharply criticized, both here and in Mexico, for not doing more.
"Calderon would continue what we've seen under Fox — a very passive relation with the U.S., and with very little advocacy," said Frank Martin del Campo, a Mexican who is president of the San Francisco chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement.
Lopez Obrador would have "tried to be stronger and not be the pushover that they are now," said Teodoro Maus, a former Mexican consul general in Atlanta who voted for a minority candidate.
Yanett Navarro, a 33-year-old attendant at a Los Angeles travel agency, disagreed. She said Lopez Obrador's leftist politics would have alienated Washington and made immigration reform impossible.
"Lopez Obrador is too isolated politically," Navarro said. "Calderon is in a better position to provide stability and support to immigrants."
Through a brutal campaign, Calderon painted Lopez Obrador as a radical leftist similar to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Lopez Obrador said Calderon was a puppet of the rich who would continue Fox's policies.
Many of Lopez Obrador's supporters were poor Mexicans who immigrated illegally to the United States looking for a better life.
"He was the hope of the poor," said Adriana Lopez, an illegal immigrant in Costa Mesa, south of Los Angeles. "I just hope Calderon does something for the poor."
Associated Press writers Juliana Barbassa in San Francisco and Laura Wides-Munoz in Miami contributed to this report. |
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