Mexican leftist will never accept rival's win

Mexico's leftist opposition leader said on September 3rd, he will never recognize his right-wing rival as president and vowed a "radical transformation" of the country by setting up a parallel government.

"We will never accept usurpation nor recognize a president-elect who is illegitimate," the former mayor of Mexico City told a rally of thousands of supporters in the capital's main square.

For more than a month, his leftist supporters have been protesting the election result by occupying the giant Zocalo square, the symbolic center of power in Mexico since Aztec times. They have also taken over a long section of the main Reforma boulevard, paralyzing the city center and causing traffic chaos.

Lopez Obrador did not say how he plans to set up a parallel government but in the past he said his supporters could continue the current street protests for years if necessary. He has also promised to avoid violence.

New doubts about Mexico's election Judges who determined the outcome are not releasing details about recount

9/9/2006: Top electoral officials and judges are feeding doubts about the outcome of Mexico's presidential vote by declining to release details about a recount of 4 million ballots and by moving quickly to destroy all 41 million ballots, legal experts said Friday.

The seven judges of the Federal Electoral Tribunal declared conservative candidate Felipe Calderon president-elect Tuesday. But the tribunal's 300-page ruling on the election left some experts shaking their heads.

John Ackerman, a professor of law at the National University of Mexico, said the judges had made no attempt to investigate improprieties in electoral financing and other charges made by losing leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The ruling also failed to cite a single legal precedent in its rejection of a Lopez Obrador bid to have the election annulled, Ackerman said.

The court opened ballot boxes and recounted 4 million votes, but did so only to determine whether there was evidence of outright fraud -- and declared that it had found none. The actual tallies from the recount were not released to the public.