Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06MEXICO3309
2006-06-15 20:58:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Mexico
Cable title:  

FEDERAL ELECTORAL INSTITUTE COUNSELOR DISCUSSES

Tags:  PGOV MX 
pdf how-to read a cable
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DE RUEHME #3309/01 1662058
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 152058Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY MEXICO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1666
INFO RUEHXC/ALL US CONSULATES IN MEXICO COLLECTIVE
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MEXICO 003309 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/14/2016
TAGS: PGOV MX
SUBJECT: FEDERAL ELECTORAL INSTITUTE COUNSELOR DISCUSSES
JULY 2 SCENARIOS


Classified By: Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Leslie A. Bassett for rea
sons 1.4(b) and (d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MEXICO 003309

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/14/2016
TAGS: PGOV MX
SUBJECT: FEDERAL ELECTORAL INSTITUTE COUNSELOR DISCUSSES
JULY 2 SCENARIOS


Classified By: Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Leslie A. Bassett for rea
sons 1.4(b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary: Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) Counselor
Arturo Sanchez shared with us June 14 some insights on the
coming election. He was adamant that despite the usual
glitches, election day would be relatively smooth.
Nevertheless, he expected a tight race with judicial
challenges to follow (such challenges have become a regular
feature in Mexican elections in the last six years). He did
not discount completely the possibility of post-election
demonstrations should Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and the
Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) come up short, but
he thought Mexican institutions could cope with that. He
explained the difficulties surrounding IFE's planned quick
count announcement on election eve, and suggested IFE might
withhold the announcement. More positively, he said the
parties have already begun to send out feelers to one another
about post-election compromise. End summary.

A Tight Race
--------------


2. (C) Sanchez has been a member of IFE's governing body
(Consejo General) since 2003 and worked at IFE for several
years before taking that position. He agreed with the latest
polls showing Lopez Obrador and National Action Party (PAN)
candidate Felipe Calderon in a dead heat. He also said
Roberto Madrazo and the Institutional Revolutionary Party
(PRI) were moving up from a distant third, raising the
possibility of a tight three-way race. Sanchez insisted, as
one might expect, that the electoral machinery was sound. He
said parties trying to keep their options open in the event
of a loss would always be quick to suggest bias or other
problems, but with party observers in the polling places
watching the voting and the counting and receiving a copy of
the results, it would be extremely difficult for anyone to
manipulate the outcome. He said there would certainly be
isolated problems such as getting the polls open in
particularly conflictive areas (he mentioned both EZLN areas
of Chiapas and San Salvador Atenco in Mexico State, scene of
a riot in early May). However, he insisted these problems
would not be sufficient in scale to affect the outcome of a

presidential race. He said there might be some congressional
districts where problems would necessitate nullification by
the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TRIFE) and a subsequent
special election, but this was nothing new.

IFE and the Brother-in-Law
--------------


3. (C) Regarding the recent Lopez Obrador attack ads
suggesting Calderon's brother-in-law Diego Zavala had been
getting sweetheart government contracts and tax breaks for
his company Hildebrando, Sanchez insisted the allegations of
a sinister IFE connection were nonsense. He said IFE did
indeed use a common brand of software sold by Hildebrando,
but they bought it from a different vendor. IFE had also had
a contract with a data processing company that terminated in
2000, three years before the company was acquired by
Hildebrando. He said IFE had readily agreed to PRD and PRI
demands for an audit of its contracts with Hildebrando,
knowing there was no smoking gun. (Note: IFE rebuffed the
parties' attempts to secure a review of the electoral rolls
and system for compiling preliminary results or PREP, arguing
that both had been thoroughly reviewed by the parties, and
the deadline for such challenges had long since passed. End
note.). Sanchez acknowledged that few Mexicans would ever
understand all this, and therefore the attacks were
undoubtedly having an impact.

Election Day and the Aftermath
--------------


4. (C) Sanchez said an ugly teachers' strike in Oaxaca, with
threats by the strikers to disrupt the elections, was
troubling (state police moved in June 14 to move the strikers
from the Oaxaca City square but failed to dislodge them). He
said the state union was at odds with the national union
leadership and not clearly affiliated with any party.
However, Sanchez said even a very successful effort to
disrupt the voting in Oaxaca would probably affect no more
than 20 percent of the polling places there, serious enough
to merit a complaint from whichever party thought it
advantageous to do so, but probably not enough to invalidate
a presidential election. (Note: Because Oaxaca is
traditionally a PRI state, the assumption is that disruption
of the elections there would hit Madrazo hardest. End note.)



5. (C) Discussing the possibility of post-electoral
disturbances, Sanchez admitted that a narrow defeat for Lopez

MEXICO 00003309 002 OF 003


Obrador -- which Sanchez defined as three percent or less --
might result in demonstrations, but he doubted these would be
long-lasting or violent. His reasoning was that the PRD was
clearly headed for victory in Mexico City, both in terms of a
strong showing for Lopez Obrador and in the mayoral race,
whereas post-election trouble in Mexico generally started in
neighborhoods where the voters felt disenfranchised. He
noted that PRD city government and the inevitable PRD winner
of the mayoral race might be disinclined to see the city
paralyzed by violent protests. Sanchez pinned much of his
optimism on the fact that both the IFE and TRIFE enjoyed
greater public confidence than any political party (the polls
back this up). Whatever the loser's complaints, he would
need to take them to the TRIFE within four days of the
official count (July 5 for the presidential race) and then
await the TRIFE's decision, which might not come until
September. Sanchez said even Lopez Obrador, who showed his
ability to mobilize his supporters during last year's
desafuero crisis, could not keep crowds in the streets week
after week. Sanchez, who clearly has little love for Lopez
Obrador, also insisted the PRD candidate was not a fool; he
would not want to create a situation that would cause a
financial and political meltdown in Mexico, particularly if
he had hopes of turning around the initial outcome of the
election.

Calling the Race
--------------


6. (C) Poll results are embargoed starting eight days before
the election until the closing of the polling places July 2
at 9:00 pm EDT. Media exit polls should appear then. At
around 12:00 am EDT July 3, IFE is expected to release its
quick count results. The quick count is based on a
scientific sampling of 7,600 polling places. Sanchez claimed
2,000 would be enough to yield a statistically valid
prediction, but IFE chose to use a much larger sampling.
Sanchez said the margin of error was .03 percent. In
addition to the quick count, throughout the night of July
2-3, data from the PREP will be posted on the IFE website
(www.ife.org.mx). PREP works as follows. When votes are
counted and the tally sheet prepared at each polling place,
copies are given to the party representatives at the polling
place, and the tally sheets, along with the rest of the
election materials, are sent to IFE district headquarters
where the tallies are entered in a centralized computer
database. PREP results for Mexico's 131,018 polling places
should be nearly complete around 5:00 am EDT July 3 (a few
polling places will never make it into PREP because someone
inevitably botches the job of properly sealing the tally
sheets and electoral materials -- this does not affect the
final tabulation later in the week). Since the parties will
have copies of the tally sheets before they reach the PREP,
the system seems trustworthy. The official vote tabulation
is done July 5 (for president and the lower house of
congress; the tabulation for the upper house of congress
comes July 9).


7. (C) The quick count, invented to get a reliable result
into the public domain quickly to prevent post-election
shenanigans by the once dominant PRI, has become a bit of an
albatross for IFE. While Sanchez saw no problems calling a
quick count win for Lopez Obrador, he said a quick count
announcement showing a narrow margin in anyone else's favor
might cause problems with Lopez Obrador and the PRD. Both
the PRD and the PRI have already begun questioning the quick
count system. Sanchez said IFE might decline to make a quick
count announcement if Lopez Obrador were losing but the
margin was roughly three percent or less, although he
reiterated that the accuracy of the quick count system would
support an accurate call even if the margin were far
narrower. Inconsistency between the media exit polls and the
quick count result would also give IFE pause, although
Sanchez insisted the quick count was more reliable than any
exit poll. Sanchez admitted that a late night announcement
by IFE that it would not release the quick count would be
controversial, but he noted the PREP results would be there
for all to see on the internet before sunup, and the official
count would come July 5.

Hints of Compromise
--------------


8. (C) Sanchez said the civility pact signed June 13 by all
the parties (save one minor player) was no guarantee of
post-election civility (and certainly not pre-election
civility),but it would help. Sanchez felt that by signing
it Lopez Obrador had bound himself to the path of
institutionality should he chose to challenge the election
results. At a minimum, Sanchez said the parties had sent a
calming signal to the electorate that boded well for
post-July 2. Sanchez also said the three major parties had

MEXICO 00003309 003 OF 003


begun, cautiously, to negotiate (in pairs, not yet
trilaterally) what might happen in the event of a close race.
He said a losing party would want to see what it could get
in terms of cabinet seats, legislation, etc. in return for
foregoing an electoral challenge. This explained the logic
behind many of the party complaints about the electoral
process, as they try to position themselves to spoil another
party's claim to victory and up their own price for
concession. Sanchez said the negotiations had not yet gone
too far because the PRD so far was maintaining that it was a
certain winner and thus had no reason to discuss any
concessions.

Comment
--------------


9. (C) We continue to believe Mexico's electoral machinery is
sound and that the possibilities of significant fraud or
disruption are minimal. That of course will not keep the
losers from howling, especially if the race is as close as it
now appears. Given Lopez Obrador's proven ability to
mobilize his supporters, we cannot discount the possibility
of demonstrations should he lose in a close race. However,
we expect any such demonstrations to be largely confined to
Mexico City (his base of support) and mostly nonviolent
(since it is probably not in Lopez Obrador's interest to let
things get out of hand). We agree with Sanchez that the
TRIFE and its extended period for deliberations act as a
shock absorber for public discontent. IFE's reluctance to
release a quick-count in a very close race is understandable,
but should IFE withhold the announcement it could be
controversial (raising dismal memories of the infamous 1988
computer crash) and might be spun by the losers no matter who
they are. If it comes to that, we should be patient in
waiting for the PREP results early July 3 and the official
tabulation July 5. Sanchez's claim that the parties were
already positioning themselves to accept defeat, but at a
price, is good news if true. It suggests that politicians
are already at least thinking about compromise and that there
may be a way out of any impasse that might develop.


Visit Mexico City's Classified Web Site at
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/mexicocity

BASSETT