http://www.presstv.com/detail/2012/07/04/249383/545-of-mexico-votes-to-be-recounted/
Wed Jul 4, 2012 8:56PM GMT
Mexican officials open a ballot box to start counting votes after the country’s presidential election in Guadalajara, Mexico on July 1, 2012.
Mexican electoral authorities have announced a recount of 54.5 percent of the votes cast in Sunday's presidential election.
Edmundo Jacobo, the executive secretary of Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), made the announcement on Wednesday, one day after leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador -- the runner-up in Mexico's presidential election -- asked election authorities to recount the votes due to irregularities, AP reported.
Jacobo said that of the 143,000 ballot boxes used during vote, 78,012 will be opened to recount the votes, adding that recount is likely to be completed by Thursday.
Lopez Obrador, the candidate of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), who finished with about 6.5 percentage points behind President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), said the election had been marred by PRI vote-buying and other abuses.
"It's a national embarrassment how the PRI's leaders and their sponsors have acted, and the totally immoral way in which Enrique Pena Nieto has behaved," Obrador said.
With nearly half of Mexico's 112 million people living in poverty, the economy was one of the main issues in the election campaign.
The war on drugs that was launched nearly six years ago by President Felipe Calderon was another issue dominating the campaign. His military crackdown on drug cartels has turned parts of the country into war zones.
More than 55,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since 2006.
GJH/AS
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