Vázquez Mota Wins Mexican Expat Vote

Josefina Vázquez Mota may’ve ended in third in yesterday’s Mexican presidential election but she scored a win among her countrymen living abroad.

According to Mexican electoral officials, the former minister representing the PAN gained 42.16% of the expat vote while Andrés Manuel López Obrador was second with 38.99%.

Presumed general election winner Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI finished a distant third among Mexicans abroad with a paltry 15.61%.

The results were a repeat of the previous presidential election six years ago when most expats opted for the PAN’s Felipe Calderon while the PRI candidate only gained 4% of the vote. For Carlos Arango, the head of Chicago-based community organization Casa Aztlán, the results this year are not a surprise:

Once again most voters abroad “punished” the PRI since “they have no sympathy in the U.S.,” said Arango. “Those that are living abroad have not forgotten that they had to leave Mexico due to the problems caused by PRI-led regimes.”

The activist also noted that Enrique Peña Nieto and his party “did not invest in the expat community until the very end of his campaign.”

Mexico: Enrique Peña Nieto Widens Lead in Presidential Election (Updated)

Mexico’s old guard is apparently poised to reclaim the country’s presidency.

According to Mexico’s electoral board, the IFE, Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI leads the race for the presidency. With 84.27% of the votes counted, the center-right Peña Nieto is first with 37.55% of the vote, 5.31% ahead of the leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Update (12:15): Peña Nieto has widened his lead to over 6% with nearly 93% of the vote counted, which explains why he's received congratulatory messages from several countries including Britain and Spain.

The former State of Mexico governor claimed that he won the election after a "quick count" conducted by the IFE gave him a 6-8% lead over López Obrador.

“Mexicans have given our party another chance. We are going to honor it with results,” said Peña Nieto to his followers while a senior IFE official claimed that Peña Nieto’s electoral advantage is “irreversible.”

If the numbers do hold then it would represent a return to the presidency for the PRI, the party which ruled Mexico for seventy-one years until 2000 when PAN candidate Vicente Fox ended the hegemony.

“The last word hasn't been spoken yet…We simply do not have all the facts,” said López Obrador, who claimed that he would not quit until all the votes are counted.

It is unknown if López Obrador’s backers plan to repeat the actions of six years ago when he launched massive street protests after controversially losing the presidential race by less than 1% to current president Felipe Calderon.

Today’s Video: Seeking Justice for the ABC Victims

This week the Mexican legislature passed a landmark bill aimed at compensating the victims of drug crimes. Yet it’s another group of victims who continue to seek justice nearly three years after the tragic and sadly preventable ABC Nursery fire.

A citizens group known as the Movement for Justice on June 5 (El Movimiento por la Justicia 5 de Junio) has called on Mexican president Felipe Calderón to push for the implementation of the regulations in the Nursery Law.

"We call all the parents of affected families, to join forces with us and force President Calderon, that he enact regulations that should have been done April, "said Jose Francisco Garcia Quintana, spokesman for the the Movement for Justice on June 5. Quintana added that the lack of implrmentation of the Nursery Law, which was passed last year, has put into danger children that rely on the services of daycare centers throughout Mexico.

The following 2010 video via Al Jazeera English looks at the June 2009 blaze that killed forty-nine children in the state-run nursery:

Daily Headlines: February 7, 2012

* Brazil: Authorities filed a lawsuit seeking to block Twitter accounts and messages warning about “radar locations, speed traps, and DUI checkpoints.”

* Mexico: Josefina Vasquez Mota became the first female presidential candidate from a major political party after winning the primary for the ruling PAN on Sunday.

* Dominican Republic: At least eighteen migrants died after the boat they where traveling in capsized off the Dominican coast.

* Cuba: Former president Fidel Castro made a “rare appearance” in Havana in order to promote his new memoir.

Image Source – Flickr via xioubin low (CC BY 2.0)

Online Sources- CNet News, Reuters, Voice of America, MSNBC