Final tally names Calderon winner

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Mexico’s highest election court took a big step this week toward resolving the remaining controversy from last July’s presidential election. The final count gave conservative Felipe Calderon a margin of victory of less than 1 percentage point over leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The leftists demanded a recount of all 41 million votes, but Mexico’s election court refused to grant one. After the final court decision that named Calderon the winner, John Ackerman, an American-born law professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and other academics and writers then filed suit in an attempt to gain access to the ballots. Their aim was to study the ballots, and perhaps conduct a partial recount, arguing that such an exercise would increase public confidence in the result.

On Wednesday, the court ruled in a 7-0 decision that the marked ballots are not public documents and need not be made available to the public. The court gave the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), the government body charged with running the country’s elections, 48 hours to rewrite the initial ruling that denied Ackerman access to the ballots, saying the officials had failed to provide adequate legal arguments for denying the petition.

But the judges’ ruling made it clear that after IFE officials comply with that formality, they can destroy the ballots, as required by Mexican law.

Posted by Hector Tobar in Mexico City.