God and Benito Juarez on AMLO's side... IFE defends its statistics

Auxillary Bishop of Mexico, Monseñor Carlos Briseño Arch, presumably speaking for Cardinal Rivera (who is in Spain on church business) -- and by extension for the Catholic Church -- paraphasing the father of Mexican nationalism (and, anti-clericism) BENITO JUAREZ ("Entre los individuos como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz") discounts reports of political violence, and defends the right of the people to protest the election, Notimex reports. While the Church still does not directly speak on political issues, it's hard not to read the "signs and wonders" in the Monseñor's remarks. I have never heard a cleric quote Juarez, even though this particular quote is known to every Mexican schoolchild and is the basis of Mexico's non-interventionist foreign policy and the pithiest statement of the Mexican theory of justice and equality. Moreover, the Bishop said "the people have a right to make themselves heard, to oppose if they disagree, and of course, to demonstrate that there exist some type of irregularities and inconsistenciess in the elections". That's a quick and dirty translation... but even in the veiled language the Church uses when talking to the State, it's very, very clear. The Federal Special Prosecutor's Office for Crimes of the Past" (FEMOSPP) questions -- as do others the timing of ex-President Luis Ecchiverría's arrest, and "unarrest". Rosario Ibarra de Piedra (who, ever since her son was "disappeared" in 1974 has been hounding the government, the PRI, and Luis Echiverría personally -- she ran for President as a Trotskyite in 1982, just for the chance to raise embarrasing questions, and won a Senate seat this election as a "Coalicion Por el Bien de Todos" plurinominal candidate) thought the arrest coming four days before the election was a "Foxist joke". Echiverría's release, this weekend, doesn't make sense either... UNLESS, of course, it was indeed designed to both surpress PRI votes, and to shift undecided voters to PAN. FEMOSSP is appealing the judge's decision. AND... though I haven't been able to follow up today, IFE is insisting their quick returns were correct, and they have nothing to hide (I don't think they do... but the party's may). From Sunday's Jornada:

by FABIOLA MARTINEZ In the latest attempt to explain to the public the differences between the Preliminary Electorial Results Program (PREP) and those results coming from district calcultations, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) will today release a detailed report of the controversial system, which last Monday showed Panista Felipe Calderón having a 1.04% advantage (402,708 votes) over Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador of PRD. However, the district calculations - the results of which were official release Thursday - show the difference between the two candidates of only 0.58%, equivalent to 243,394 votes. Starting early Monday, and continuing all week, advisors and the technical committee responsible for the PREP have insisted that there were no "without incidents nor contingencies", even though 11 thousand 184 actas (ballots cast) for the president were disqualified and not included in the count. In other words, these ballots, representing 2,581,226 citizens were not scrutinized, because of irregularities or supposed illegibilities in the statistical sample ballots. In spite of that, the advisors insist PREP worked as it was designed to, playing its proper role, and is not expecting any changes before the next federal election. "There is nothing to hide and in three years - during the elections to renew the House of Representatives we will again use his tool that gave us very precise results in calculating the presidential results," said advisor Arturo Sanchez Gutiérrez, president of the Commission of Electoral Organization.