Leftist candidate makes legal appeal

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s leading leftist presidential candidate asked the country’s top electoral court late Sunday to order a ballot-by-ballot recount of last week’s election, as his party turned over nine boxes of evidence of alleged fraud and dirty campaign practices.

The 900-page claim alleged that some polling places had more votes than registered voters, that the ruling party funneled government money to conservative Felipe Calderon’s campaign and exceeded spending limits, and that a software program was used to skew initial vote-count reports.

“We have proof that basic rules were flagrantly violated,” said Ricardo Monreal, a representative for Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who lost the July 2 election to Calderon by a razor-thin margin.

Mexico’s Federal Electoral Court will review the case, which includes videos, campaign propaganda and electoral documents. The court has until Sept. 6 to declare a winner.

The legal challenge came a day after Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor, held a mammoth rally in Mexico City’s historic center and called on his followers to help overturn Calderon’s narrow victory. Lopez Obrador hopes to force authorities to conduct a manual recount of all 41 million ballots.

“This was a very irregular election and we are asking that they count vote by vote to legitimize the president-elect,” Gerardo Fernandez, a spokesman for Lopez Obrador’s Democratic Revolution Party, said outside the tribunal Sunday night as he waited for lawyers to arrive.

“We won’t recognize Calderon’s triumph unless they legitimize the election,” he said.

Election officials said Thursday that Felipe Calderon beat Lopez Obrador by fewer than 244,000 votes in the July 2 election – or a margin of just 0.6 percent.

But Lopez Obrador contends some of his votes weren’t counted or were voided without reason. He has millions of devoted followers who believe only he can help Mexico’s poor and downtrodden, and he has long used street protests to pressure the government and courts.

Lopez Obrador’s claims also include allegations that President Vicente Fox used government funds to support Calderon, the candidate of Fox’s conservative National Action Party.

Fox has denied interfering in the elections, and election monitors from the European Union said they found no irregularities in the vote count.

The law allows a manual recount only for polling places where credible evidence of irregularities exist. Lopez Obrador’s supporters say that applies to at least 50,000 of the approximately 130,000 polling stations.