Election loser orders protests

Mexico: Mexico's hero of the downtrodden, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has ordered nationwide marches to converge on the capital…

Mexico: Mexico's hero of the downtrodden, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has ordered nationwide marches to converge on the capital next Sunday in what could be the biggest demonstration in modern Mexican history.

The former left-wing mayor of Mexico City rallied 150,000 followers on Saturday to press for a recount of the presidential election, which his supporters believe was stolen. The official count of the July 2nd presidential poll gave the governing party candidate, Felipe Calderon, a victory of about 0.6 per cent, or less than 244,000 votes.

Last night, the election commission denied the result was manipulated.

Mr Lopez Obrador insists that the figures on the sheets were fiddled in favour of Mr Calderon. "We are going to ask that they count all the votes, vote by vote, poll by poll," he told the crowd. Mexico's electoral history is plagued by fraud, primarily associated with the single-party regime that governed the country from 1929 until 2000.

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"Do you think anything has changed?" Mr Lopez Obrador asked the crowd on Saturday. A resounding "No" returned.