Daily Headlines: June 6, 2016

* Peru: As hinted it by several exit polls, the presidential runoff in Peru is much too close to call as Pedro Pablo Kuczynski holds a less than 1% advantage over Keiko Fujimori with at least 90% of votes officially counted.

* Haiti: Haitian interim president Jocelerme Privert claimed that the country’s presidential elections will be rerun this October, which is nearly one year since the apparently fraudulent first round was held.

* Venezuela: Spain’s foreign minister called on the Venezuelan government and opposition to engage in dialogue one day after it was reported that ex-President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero met with jailed dissident leader Leopoldo Lopez.

* Mexico: Mexico’s ruling political party is expected to lose in seven of the twelve gubernatorial elections held yesterday including traditional strongholds Veracruz, Tamaulipas, and Quintana Roo.

YouTube Source – CCTV News

Online Sources – euronews, Fox News Latino, The Latin Americanist, Reuters, teleSUR English

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.

Daily Headlines: July 5, 2011

* Venezuela: "The return has begun," decalared Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez to thousands of supporters last night hours after the ailing leader returned to his homeland.

* Colombia: Authorities claimed that they are close to capturing and possibly killing FARC guerilla chief Alfonso Cano, while at least two eyewitnesses who testified against politicos in the “para-politics” scandal were slain last week.

* U.S.: At least 125 Atlanta-area businesses were reportedly closed on Friday as part of a "day without immigrants" protest organized by a Georgia Latino rights group.

* Peru: President-elect Ollanta Humala is supposed to arrive today in Washington, D.C. where he’s scheduled to speak with U.S. officials including Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.

* Bolivia: The Andean nation pulled out of a U.N. anti-drugs convention after failing to overcome U.S. objections against relaxing global norms to legalize coca chewing.

* Mexico: The country’s political dinosaur, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, may be in the midst of a comeback after the party swept a trio of gubernatorial elections over the weekend.

Video Source – euronews via YouTube (Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez returned to his country yesterday days after he admitted that doctors in Cuba removed a tumor with “cancerous cells.”)
Online Sources- BBC News, LAHT, UPI, The Telegraph, Living in Peru, News-Leader.com