(Scroll down to read in English)
¡Qué día! Acá el partido laborista amaneció con gran escándalo y pleito, todo por ver si ahora sí ya se va Blair o todavía no. Ya casi parecen el PRD. Las noticias de México, aunque esperadas, no podían ser más desalentadoras, y mientras escribo esto todavía huele a quemado en el cuarto: acabamos de ver incendiarse un autobús por la ventana, espectáculo sumamente dramático, afortunadamente sin víctimas. Sólo espero que no haya sido una bomba, o bomba fallida (no escuchamos ningún tipo de explosión). En fin. Escribí otra carta al Embajador que entregaré el próximo lunes. Si eres mexicano en el Reino Unido o vives en este país y te importa lo que está pasando en México, puedes añadir tu firma en la sección de comentarios o escribiendo a mi dirección de email.
Después de la carta viene la carta que envié hoy a The Independent. No sé si la publicarán, y en ese caso, qué tanto la editarán, pues es larga. Pero espero que si alguien que haya estado leyendo lo que se dice de este conflicto en la prensa británica pasa de casualidad por aquí, y lee mi carta, las cosas le quedarán un poco más claras.
Ya después hablaré sobre lo que pienso del último discurso de López Obrador. Ahorita estoy simplemente agotada.
What a day! Here, the Labour party started the day in the midst of great scandal and quarrel, trying to see whether if Blair is finally leaving or not yet. They almost sound like the PRD. News in Mexico, though expected, couldn’t be more disheartening, and while I write this I can still smell the fumes from a bus we just saw burning through the window. Quite a dramatic spectacle, luckily with no victims. I just hope it wasn’t a bomb, or rather a failed bomb, as we heard no explosion. Anyway… I wrote another letter to the Mexican Ambassador which will be delivered next Monday. If you are a Mexican in the UK or you live here and care about what’s happening in Mexico, and want to sign this letter, you can do it through the comments section or writing to my email address.
After the letter you can read another one, which I sent today to The Independent. I don’t know if they will publish it and, if they do, how much will they edit it. It’s long. So I hope that if someone who’s been reading what the British press says about this conflict finds him or herself here by any chance and reads my letter, he (or she) will have things a bit clearer.
Later I will talk about López Obrador’s last speech. Right now I’m simply exhausted.
CARTA/LETTER
(Scroll down to read in English)
C. Juan José Bremer
Embajador de México en el Reino Unido
16 St. George Street
London W1S 1LX
Estimado Señor Embajador:
Quienes firmamos esta carta somos mexicanos radicados en el Reino Unido, o ciudadanos británicos y otros extranjeros viviendo en este país que conocemos y queremos a México.
El motivo de esta carta es hacer de su conocimiento que, tras el fallo del Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación (TEPJF) del pasado 5 de septiembre de 2006, nos rehusamos a aceptar dicho fallo y desconocemos al Sr. Felipe Calderón como presidente electo de México.
La exigencia de un recuento total de los votos en las pasadas elecciones presidenciales se volvió más apremiante tras el recuento parcial de una muestra representativa de casillas, que arrojó el resultado de graves irregularidades en más de un 60%. El TEPJF rechazó las denuncias recurriendo a una descalificación del procedimiento legal, en lugar de abocarse a allegarse las pruebas correspondientes y ampliar sus investigaciones. Nos dice que las elecciones no fueron ni transparentes ni intachables, pero que son sin embargo legales simplemente porque ellos han decidido calificarlas así. Es decir, como por desgracia sucede con demasiada frecuencia en nuestro país, esta instancia ha abusado de su poder para volver legal lo que no es legítimo.
No firmamos esta carta con ningún ánimo partidista. No sabemos, y suponemos que ya no vamos a saberlo nunca, quién ganó realmente las pasadas elecciones. Pero sí sabemos que no fueron unas elecciones ni limpias ni transparentes, y que el partido que ahora se declara triunfador recurrió a la alianza con otras fuerzas políticas para imponer este triunfo sobre los mexicanos. Nosotros entendemos, entonces, que nos hemos quedado sin presidente, y le agradeceríamos que les haga saber al presidente Vicente Fox y al Sr. Calderón que hay personas en el Reino Unido siguiendo los acontecimientos que desconocen categóricamente el triunfo del candidato del PAN en estas elecciones.
Muchas gracias. Saludos cordiales,
Adriana Díaz Enciso
Dear Ambassador,
We signing this letter are either Mexicans living in the UK or British citizens and other foreigners in this country who know and love Mexico.
We are writing to you in order to let you know that after the Mexican Highest Electoral Court’s (TEPJF) ruling last September the 5th, 2006, we refuse to accept the mentioned ruling and do not recognize Mr. Felipe Calderón as the elected president of Mexico.
The demand of a total recount of the past presidential election’s votes became even more urgent after the partial recount of a representative sample, which revealed grave irregularities in more than 60% of the urns. The TEPJF rejected the claims by dismissing the legal procedure through which they were made, instead of concentrating on gathering the relevant proofs and broadening their investigations. They tell us that the elections were neither transparent nor flawless, yet they are legal simply because they have decided to call them so. This means that, as unfortunately it happens all too often in our country’s institutions, the tribunal has abused its power in order to make legal what is illegitimate.
We are not signing this letter because of any particular party alliance. We don’t know—and we guess we never will now—who really won the past elections. But we do know that those elections were not clean nor transparent, and that the party that now declares itself the winner allied itself to other political forces in order to impose this supposed triumph on the Mexican people. We therefore understand that we don’t have a new president, and would be very grateful if you informed Mr. Vicente Fox and Mr. Calderón that there are people in the UK following this sad events who categorically refuse to acknowledge the alleged triumph of the PAN’s candidate to these elections.
Thank you very much.
CARTA A “THE INDEPENDENT”/LETTER TO “THE INDEPENDENT”
Dear Sirs,
I must say I’ve been appalled on following the UK’s media coverage of the post-electoral conflict in Mexico. It makes me wonder, if all international news is covered in such a sloppy manner, whether if there is any point in reading the international section of newspapers at all.
True, Mexican politics are convoluted. That shouldn’t justify, though, the mistake The Independent has made, along with other British media, namely to simplify the conflict and polarize its different aspects, following in the steps of the deep division between the adverse parties and accepting unquestioningly the “winner’s” version.
I should start by making clear that I’m no supporter of López Obrador or the PRD, for reasons too long to describe in this space, but which include his (in my view) mistakes in the handling of the electoral conflict. Yet, I do care about democracy in my country, and I am convinced that the past presidential elections were by no means as crystal clear as your coverage of them would make us believe.
Leaving aside the fact that López Obrador has not precisely “taken to the streets in an effort to overthrow the final count by brute, popular force”, as your editorialist of September the 6th says—there’s been no ‘brute’ force or any form of violence in those amazing demonstrations, which would deserve a whole reportage on their own regardless the PRD’s and ‘Coalition’ leader—I’m afraid that, for Mexicans, recognising ‘the court as the final arbiter of the Constitution” is no simple matter, and ‘graciousness’ is certainly not involved in the question.
We cannot jump to the conclusion that such acknowledgement of the court’s decision is desirable without mentioning that the Mexican highest electoral court chose to ignore that the partial recount of the votes for the elections supposedly won by Calderón revealed irregularities in more than 60% of the revised voting booths. Those irregularities were no mean insignificant details: they involved illegal opening of the urns after the actual elections, discrepancy between the number of voters and the votes emitted, and other niceties we Mexicans are sadly all too familiar with. If the partial recount diminished, even if slightly, the already razor-thin ‘triumph’ of Calderón, it would be logical to expect the same would happen with a total recount of the votes. That’s supposed to be one of the virtues of statistics, and given the turmoil we’re in, after such results from the partial recount only the total recount of the votes would have given transparency and legitimacy to whoever had truly won the elections.
Some commentators are astonished because millions of Mexicans are questioning the cleanness of the past elections; they’re astonished even though they surely know the only clean presidential election we’ve had in generations is the last one, won by Vicente Fox, and even though there’s no Mexican who’s not well acquainted with the many devices by which electoral fraud has systematically been exercised within our utterly corrupt political system. These commentators’ stupor stops them even from noticing the blatantly immoral alliances and negotiations between the PAN and the PRI—the latter being the not-so-extinct dinosaur and master party in electoral fraud.
You wonder why so many Mexicans don’t trust our institutions, and such ignorance of our recent history truly makes me despair. Mexicans have endlessly suffered massacre, repression, fraud, theft, corruption and indiscriminate violence, with total impunity, on the hands of those representing even our most sacred institutions. Why should we trust them?
Basically, what the high electoral court said yesterday was: after the partial recount of the votes, we agree there were irregularities in the elections, but we can’t be bothered to push further for the gathering of proofs—something they are perfectly entitled, and of course expected, to do—, nor to investigate the matter any deeper. Therefore, the elections, though by no means transparent or flawless, are legal, because we say so, and by law no one can challenge our decision.
That, to me, is far from being an incontrovertible state of affairs.
Many Mexicans—back in Mexico and abroad—feel in a wilderness right now; many of us are not at all convinced by López Obrador’s motivations or methods in his protests and are not endorsing him. We’re very worried that violence may unleash. We’re confused and sad and angry. But we do care about the truth, and about the future of our very young and still flawed democracy. I only wish your correspondents and editorialist had the same concerns about the truth!
Adriana Díaz Enciso 