‘Fraude Mexico 2006’ — just in time for the U.S. elections
Piecing together over 3,000 hours of amatuer video, some made from cell-phone downloads, together with his own professional footage, Mexican diretor Luis Mandoki’s Fraude Mexico 2006 is said by Los Angeles Times reviewer Agustin Gurza to be “overtly partisan” and “preach[ing] messages to viewers who are already inclined to believe.”
Gurza is up-front about his family’s PAN connections, and his review focuses on Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s seemingly quixotic quest to overturn the 2006 Presidential election… marked by illegal and negative campaign advertising, questionable vote counting (including dubious electorial software contracts). He admires the way Mandoki paints a portrait of AMLO — a former community organizer turned politician — as
… a humble, gray-haired Everyman carrying an epic burden on his sloping shoulders. In an interview that weaves through the complex narrative, López Obrador comes off as reflective, responsible and even spiritual, with an almost Ghandi-like belief in nonviolent protest. There’s a gentleness to his manner and a perpetual glint in the corner of his eye, conveying inner peace even in the depths of crisis.
Leaving aside the “what ifs” and the potential virtues or vices of a Lopez Obrador Administration (I lived under one for several years, and despite its faults, it functioned like a normal government), I admit I’m one of those “already inclined to believe” that Felipe Calderon’s election was dubious, and that there was fraud. One frustrating thing has been media coverage…
Mandoki claims the tight relationship between the government and the media made it difficult for him to produce and promote the film; even major distributors were too intimidated to touch it.
With little distribution within Mexico, and even less outside, maybe the best way to get ahold of the film is through the ten part “youtube” download. Perhaps most interesting to Mex File readers — especially those in the United States (about 60 percent of you) are the behind the scenes look at the Mexican political process and the way political confrontations work out in the country. I can’t provide subtitles, but I will post it an segment at a time over the next two weeks, with a synopsis and my own comments on the political/social processes being shown.
mexfiles.net 
I’m more inclined to believe there was no fraud.
During the election, I was impressed by the way IFE handled everything: specially the way they provided up-to-date results on the way the counting was going, and how they made their data base a public one. Anyone could (can?) and directly access the data on the elections.
I took the time to go to the place were I voted, and check that the number they reported on a sheet of paper matched the one said by IFE on the webpage. I’m not sure how many people did the same thing I did, but assuming we were enough, this basically make it impossible to have a fraud on the way votes were reported from the booth to the computer system.
Latter on, I found several webpages that did a bit of statistical analysis on the election results. And to my surprise, the dat form IFE complied with Benford’s law. (http://www.rexswain.com/benford.html) In short, Benford’s law says that in certain systems you should expect to see each digit with a certain probability (ie, digit 1 30% of the time, digit 2 15% of the time, and so on). If the IFE computer system was adding votes in a ‘funny’ way, it is highly unlikely that their numbers would comply with Benford’s law. Also, remember that their data was public! anyone could have taken the number and add them with their favorite program, or manually if they so desired.
So these two fact make it highly unlikely that there was any kind of fraud of fraud in the software side of the election. There could have been fraud on the way votes were counted on each booth, but given that in most booths there were 9 representatives from most political parties, plus citizens, the amount of people that you have to bribe to get steer an election of this size quickly adds up. Can’t remember the exact number but it was nearly 100,000 people!
And that is very high number! you try rigging an election by bribing 100,000 people, specially one like the last one, and chances are, it will blow up in your face. Your attempt will be public even before the election starts.
So, even though I haven’t seen the film, the above reasons are enough for me to believe it was a mostly fair elections.
BTW. I did not voted for Calderon
I’m inclined to believe there was fraud, but admittedly it’s just a hunch: close election, long standoff, party in power manages to retain power…color me skeptical.
That said, the film never convinced me that the election was stolen – though frankly that’s probably a lot to ask of a documentary. What I got from it was an appalling glimpse into some of the recounts less-palatable “irregularities,” and for this alone it should be required viewing. If the election wasn’t stolen, it sure gave off a powerful stench.
For what it’s worth, I saw it at the local Cinemark a year ago, so for all its distribution problems it played in a corporate chain theater in Queretaro a long time ago. Another “irregularity” I guess.