Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador: 2006 versus 2012 and Beyond

Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) recently brought turkeys, ducks, pigs, and other livestock to a news conference to highlight the alleged animals-for-votes giveaway by Enrique Peña Nieto of the once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who recorded a 6.6 percent advantage in the July 1 presidential showdown.  The Noah's Ark gambit came after the leftist candidate had suffered one legal setback after another in protesting the comparatively huge campaign expenditures, $7.50 food coupons, manipulated opinion polls, and biased media coverage for the widely acknowledged winner.  The final blow came on August 31 when magistrates in Mexico's electoral tribunal unanimously recognized Peña Nieto's victory - a decision AMLO quickly denounced.

Before this, U.S. president Barack Obama, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, and scores of other world leaders, the global business community, the mainstream media, most academic pundits, and the opposition National Action Party (PAN) and New Alliance Party (PANAL) have recognized Peña Nieto's triumph.  The only bitter-enders are elemets of the leftist parties that backed AMLO, factions of the #YoSoy132 youth crusade, radical unions, and leading sensationalist publications, La Jornada and Proceso.