WHAT'S MEXICO HIDING?

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NOTA ORIGINAL QUE ENVIA URRATEMAI

What's Mexico Hiding?

The Federal Electoral Institute's refusal to allow access to ballots from the
contested presidential election taints the country's march toward democracy.
By Irma Sandoval and John M. Ackerman

IRMA SANDOVAL and JOHN M. ACKERMAN are professors at the Institute for Social
Research and the Institute for Legal Research, respectively, at the National
Autonomous University of Mexico. They advised

September 22, 2006

MEXICO now has two presidents-elect. One officially recognized by the
electoral authorities ­ Felipe Calderon ­ and the other proclaimed
the "legitimate president" by millions of followers ­ Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador. There is one way to settle this crisis. As in the aftermath of Bush
vs. Gore in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, a group of Mexico's
newspapers should be allowed to conduct their own canvass of the ballots.

Unfortunately, the Federal Electoral Institute, which organizes the
presidential elections, has announced that it will not open up the ballots to
public scrutiny. The institute appears bent on repeating the government's
performance after the 1988 presidential election, in which the
computers "malfunctioned." It is widely believed that massive fraud allowed
Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary
Party, or PRI, to mysteriously overcome the early lead of the leftist
candidate, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas. To cover its tracks, the government then
quickly burned the evidence.

Mexico's freedom of information act, enacted in 2002, is one of the best in
the world. It gives full priority to transparency, stating that everything
should be made public except when disclosure might harm economic stability or
national security. But even this "reserved" information must be made available
after 12 years have passed.

Mexican law does keep confidential personal information, including names,
photographs and sexual orientations of particular individuals. But, of course,
secret ballots don't contain any of this material. Although the institute is
required by law to destroy the ballots eventually, there is no need to do so
immediately. And it would be illegal to carry it out prematurely for the
purpose of avoiding the freedom-of-information requests.

To his credit, Calderon has asked the institute to "preserve the ballots for
as long as possible" in the interest of ensuring the "certainty" of the
electoral results. This is a positive step, but it does not get to the heart
of the issue. Preserving the ballots will do no good if no one is allowed to
examine them.

Even worse, Calderon's National Action Party voted Tuesday against forming a
special congressional commission to keep watch over the ballots, placing doubt
on PAN's commitment to transparency. Calderon and his party should explicitly
state that the ballots should be opened to public scrutiny and take measures
to ensure this takes place.

There is a larger issue. If the Federal Electoral Institute is permitted to
hide and prematurely destroy the ballots, this would open the door to
widespread flouting of the access-to-information law by other government
agencies. The institute has argued that the ballots are not "documents" but
only the "material expression of electoral preferences" and therefore not
subject to the information law. Such ad hoc re-categorizations for the purpose
of avoiding disclosure are punishable by law, and allowing it here would set a
dangerous precedent in this fledgling democracy.



Mexico's Federal Institute of Access to Public Information, which has the
mandate to promote compliance by all government agencies to the access-to-
information law, also has maintained a worrisome silence on this crucial
issue. It is high time for a public pronouncement by its commissioners backing
up the information law. Such a statement also would help dispel concerns about
the personal ties and any conflict of interest between the chief commissioner
and Calderon

IN GENERAL, the electoral authorities have needlessly encouraged suspicions
about Calderon's victory. The Federal Electoral Tribunal, which certifies the
election results, announced that Calderon won. But it failed to disclose
details of its partial recount, which showed widespread irregularities in the
computation of the votes. And even though it condemned illegal campaign
advertisements and the intervention of President Vicente Fox, it failed to
assess their overall impact. In an election decided by only 230,000 votes out
of 41 million cast, even small discrepancies could have made a big difference.

The Florida ballots from the 2000 U.S. presidential elections were not
destroyed. They are available for public viewing and research for generations
to come. Recently, Ohio delayed the destruction of its presidential ballots
from 2004 to allow further study of irregularities.

Mexicans deserve no less. They have a right to know what actually happened on
election day. We are at a crucial moment in Mexico's transition to democracy.
After 70 years of electoral fraud under the PRI, Fox's PAN government must
ensure absolute integrity in the process through which he passes power to
Calderon, his PAN successor. Burning the ballots would set back Mexican
democracy 20 years. Full access to the ballots ­ and then a full recount, if
it's deemed warranted ­ by reputable civil society organizations in the manner
of Bush vs. Gore would restore credibility to Mexico's damaged electoral
institutions.

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Dr. Irma Sandoval and Dr. Ackerman can be reached at:
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http://www.unam.mx/iisunam
http://www.corrupcion.unam.mx