PROJECT OF OBSERVATION AND MONITORING OF POLITICAL AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLES OF CHIAPAS

MONTHLY REPORT JULY 2006

SIPAZ, in collaboration with the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center, Alianza Cívica, PROPAZ (Swiss Program of Observation and Peace Promotion in Chiapas), and Peace Watch Switzerland, has been developing a program, in Chiapas, of observation and monitoring with regards to political and civil rights during the electoral process as well as that of the Other Campaign, which will extend until December. 

The objective is to monitor and report any violation of the political and civil rights of the indigenous peoples and communities, as defined in the Mexican Political Constitution and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of the United Nations, signed by the Mexican government. This program also aims to report any attempt to create serious social destabilization, and as such, to work to prevent or avoid increased situations of violence against the communities.

What follows is a summary of the program in the month of June. The complete report will be available (in Spanish) on the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center website (http://www.frayba.org.mx).

PROJECT OF OBSERVATION AND MONITORING OF POLITICAL AND CIVIL RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLES OF CHIAPAS

MONTHLY REPORT JULY 2006

At the national level in the month of July, the political context was focused on the results of the presidential election.

Throughout the process, we observed the use, by all of the parties, of old electoral practices such as the open intervention by Vicente Fox as well as various actions by the President favoring Felipe Calderón. This gave the impression that an election by the State was taking place.

In addition, the expensive and aggressive television campaign against Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), financed by the business elite and several multinational corporations, promoted a vote of fear in favor of Felipe Calderón. It was also revealed that Calderón’s brother-in-law had access, through cybernetic means, to the Electoral List and the Preliminary Electoral Results Program (PREP).

While Election Day, July 2nd, came and went without any major incidents, the level of abstentionism was 5% higher than in the 2000 elections. At the end of the day, however, confusing and contradictory actions by the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) were revealed, heightening suspicions and fears among broad sectors of political and public opinion throughout the nation.

Uncommon statistical patterns and inconsistencies in the public results of the PREP stand out, such as the concealment of the existence of more than eleven thousand polling places that had not been counted and the uncertainty of the winner at the end of the day.

This led both Calderón, who according to the PREP won by one percentage point, and AMLO to self-declare their victory.

The following day, following accusations and pressure by AMLO, the eleven thousand polling places with inconsistencies were counted, reducing Calderón’s lead by more than half of a percentage point.

In the days that followed, the IFE carried out a district by district count. The public results showed uncommon statistical patterns, once again showing Calderón as the winner with a lead of just 0.58% over AMLO.

With these results, and despite the fact that legally only the Electoral Tribunal of Judicial Power of the Federation (TEPJF) has the power to qualify the presidential elections and declare the winner, on July 7th, Luís Carlos Ugalde, president of the IFE, publicly declared Felipe Calderón the winner, prompting congratulatory messages from Fox, as well as the governments of the USA, Finland, and Canada.

Immediately, the Coalition for the Good of All (PRD/PT/CONVERGENCIA) legally challenged the election, submitting 225 resources before the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TRIFE), which reflected irregularities in more than 52 thousand polling places. The central demand of AMLO and his supporters is the opening of all of the electoral packets and a vote-by-vote count.

From there, Calderón and AMLO have both self-declared themselves as president-elect, with the former basing his in the figures and statements of the IFE, and the latter denouncing electoral fraud against him.

To strengthen his position, Calderón has forged strategic alliances with PRI social sectors, minority parties (Nueva Alianza and Alianza Socialdemocrática y Campesina), and especially with Professor Elba Esther Gordillo, who was recently expelled from the PRI and worked openly and illegally in favor of the National Action Party (PAN) and its candidate.

On his side, AMLO organized massive social mobilizations in Mexico City, convening “Informative Assemblies” on July 8, 16, and 30th, with the last one declared as a “Permanent Assembly,” establishing a sit-in and blockades of the major avenues of the Mexican capital.

In this context, the seven judges of the TRIFE will have to qualify, by simple majority and in an irrefutable fashion, the presidential election and declare a winner no later than September 6th.

There are four possible scenarios:

1. That the TRIFE support the IFE’s results and declare Felipe Calderón the winner, provoking unpredictable popular responses;
2. That the TRIFE open all the electoral packets and recount vote by vote, resulting in AMLO’s victory, prompting a reaction from the economic power groups;
3. That the TRIFE only open the packets from the challengeable districts that comply with the legal requirements, allowing for the triumph of Calderón, who will be considered “illegitimate and false” by broad sectors; and
4. That the TRIFE apply “Abstract nullity” and declare the presidential elections invalid, which would imply an election by the Congress of an interim president, for a period of 12 to 18 months, during which time new elections would be held.

Independent of all of the aforementioned, six fundamental aspects stand out:

1. The electoral process revealed that Mexico is deeply polarized, with the industrial and urban north and west that supports the PAN, and the center, and particularly the south, which is poor and largely rural, which mainly supports AMLO. This reflects the possibility of socially conflictive scenarios in the future.
2. A broad sector of the middle and lower classes voted in favor of the right (PAN and PRI).
3. Whoever is declared the president-elect will only have the votes of one fifth of the electorate, the most minimal voting margin in the history of Mexican presidential elections.
4. If AMLO were to be declared the winner, he would have to govern with a National Congress whose majority opposes him, given that nearly 70% of the federal deputies and senators are from the PAN, PRI, PVEM and PANAL.
5. The PRI suffered the greatest defeat in the election; nevertheless, at the Congressional level this party plays the role of the balancing point.
6. The credibility of the IFE has been severely questioned throughout this process.

Nevertheless, while the political and public opinion has been centered in the unraveling of the presidential elections, in July two serious and contradictory social conflicts developed with national transcendence:

1. The teachers’ conflict in Oaxaca, which has prompted a major popular movement calling for the resignation of the State Governor from the PRI, Ulises Ruíz, and whose magnitude has put at risk the governability of the nation; and
2. The open and impugn actions of the narco-trafficking mafia, whose actions increasingly challenge the State and appear to be sending a political message about its power.

At the state level in Chiapas, the political context has been heavily influenced by the results of the presidential elections, given that for the first time in history, the PRI was the loser in the electoral process, with Roberto Madrazo behind AMLO by nearly 125,000 votes.

Nevertheless, in the state the election was “crossed,” since the PRI won the senator race, and the PRI/PVEM and the PRD/PT/Convergencia evenly split the 12 federal deputy posts. It is also worth noting that Chiapas ranks fourth in the levels of abstentionism (50.94%).

These results and the uncertainty of the presidential election seem to have led the current governor, Pablo Salazar (PSM), to openly declare his support for Juan Sabines, the gubernatorial candidate from the Coalition for the Good of All.

As such, the support by the state government for Juan Sabines has led the other four parties (PR, PAN, PANAL, PASDyC) to jointly denounce the potential for an election by the State in Chiapas.

The illegal electoral use of public resources stands out in the region affected by Hurricane Stan, where in the month of July resources have been released and public works have been carried out, accompanied by an intense, officially presented campaign, linking the resources and works to the “continuity” that the election of Sabines would supposedly bring.

This led the Federal Secretary of Social Development, under pressure from PAN supporters, to separate itself and denounce the electoral use of resources by the state government, which has been confirmed by reports received from community observers.

In other news, the indefinite suspension of the Otra Campaña continues, interrupted only by public statements by the Delegate Zero regarding the electoral fraud suffered by AMLO, “operated- according to him- from Los Pinos and the PAN central command.”

At the same time, the other three guerrilla groups with the greatest presence in the south-southeast of Mexico (Popular Revolutionary Army- EPR; the Indigenous Popular Revolutionary Army –ERPI; and the Armed Revolutionary Forces of the People- FRAP) released communiqués denouncing the belligerent form of the electoral fraud.

With regards to social conflicts and the violation of rights in Chiapas, in July, in the context of the upcoming state gubernatorial elections, the area affected by Stan (Coast-Sierra) was once again the site of the most flagrant violations of the political rights of the hurricane victims, coercing and manipulating the right to vote freely.

Indigenous mobilizations continued in the Highlands region (Simojovel and Chenalhó) and the center of the state (Nicolás Ruíz) against the Federal Electrical Commission (CFE) and the high rates and the indiscriminate blackouts, which violate the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (DESC) of the communities.

In San Cristóbal de Las Casas a new act of intimidation and threat occurred against a human rights defender, adding to the list of seventeen similar incidents this year.

In the Selva region, a new threat of violent displacement emerged, against four indigenous communities on the border of the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. If it were carried out, in addition to violating the right to dignity and life, it would also violate the rights of the communities under the International Labor Organization’s Convention 169 and the rights protected by the DESC.

In the Isthmus/Chimalapas region, the old interstate agrarian conflict resurged between the Chiapan agrarian nucleus and the indigenous communities of Oaxaca. This conflict is being manipulated by the PRI for electoral purposes. In the Palenque/Catazajá/Tabasco region, narco-trafficking mafias continue to develop violent and impugn actions and confrontations over control of the territory.