Mexico orders partial vote recounts

DHAKA: Mexican electoral authorities have said they are recounting more than half the ballot boxes used in the weekend`s presidential election after finding inconsistencies in the vote tallies.

Of the 143,000 ballot boxes used during Sunday`s vote, 78,012 will be opened and the votes recounted, Edmundo Jacobo, executive secretary of Mexico`s Federal Electoral Institute said on Wednesday.

Jacobo said the recount could be finished by Thursday.

With 99 per cent of the vote tallied in the preliminary count, Enrique Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, led with 38 per cent of the vote. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party had 32 per cent.

The presidential front-runner expressed confidence Wednesday about the recount. "I trust that the final tally will be consistent with the preliminary count," Pena Nieto said.
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Lopez Obrador has refused to accept the preliminary vote tallies, saying the election campaign was marred by overspending, vote-buying and favourable treatment of Pena Nieto by Mexico`s semi-monopolised television industry.

“None of it is true and what I say is, present the proof! Which they haven’t been able to do and no matter how hard they try to present proof, they will simply not be able to do it because they don’t exist.

Source: Aljazeera

BDST: 0845 HRS, July 5, 2012
SA