The shoe's on the other foot now

(Mexico City Herald, 22 August 2006):

Close election in Chiapas state tests Mexico's strained democracy Wire services El Universal August 22, 2006 TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Chiapas — A candidate backed by President Vicente Fox's party pledged Monday to contest the tight Chiapas state governor's race if he loses to the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) — putting a new twist on the country's deepening political crisis.

As the supporters of the PRD's presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador clogged the capital with protests to demand a recount of the July 2 presidential vote, the tables were turned in Chiapas, where the ruling party was crying fraud and candidate José Antonio Aguilar Bodegas vowed to take his fight to electoral courts if he was not named the winner.

A little more than 2,000 votes separated the two state candidates, according to preliminary results. Both claimed victory late Sunday, holding celebrations in the steamy state capital of Tuxtla Gutiérrez within blocks of each other — as if there were a clear winner.

With 94 percent of 4,761 polling places counted, Juan Sabines of the PRD was leading with 48.39 percent, or 517,129 votes. Aguilar had 48.17 percent, or 514,743 votes.