‘A country where democracy is just an illusion’

“Fraud, fraud, fraud,” is what millions of angry Mexicans all over the country yelled after the official results were released to the public: Enrique Peña Nieto is the new president of the Mexican Republic, despite all the evidence of fraud in this election.

Peña Nieto represents the Institutional Revolutionary Party that ruled the country as a one-party state from 1929 to 2000.

The PRI created a corrupted system.  They have managed to create a country full of poverty, ignorance and social inequality.

According to ObreroSocialista.org, “for millions of Mexicans who voted against neoliberal frontrunners – Peña Nieto and Josefina Vazquez Mota, candidate of the National Action Party (PAN) of President Felipe Calderón projection – the global elite support to Peña Nieto was an insult, and further evidence of the campaign to impose the PRI candidate.”

Far from being transparent and exemplary as the television stations tried to make us believe, the election was filled with traps and vices that favored Peña. There were hundreds of complaints of irregularities and bribery.

The Mexican Federal Electoral Institute spent more than 500 million dollars on election fraud. People in poverty sold their vote for less than 10 dollars. They felt that after the last election they might as well get some food out of it. And who can blame them?

According to a report submitted by the National Council for Evaluation of Social Development Policy, “poverty in Mexico increased by 3.2 percent in the period 2008-2010. The percentage of the population that is poor is 52 million people.”

Under President Felipe Calderon, poverty in Mexico worsened further. In a country so poorly governed with high poverty levels, people are desperate.

Under PAN, unemployment and poverty grew. Since 2006, there have been 60,000 deaths and 10,000 people missing brought about by the Army’s fight against drug cartels.  Entire villages were depopulated due to crime, which also controls all states.

Ignorance, the manipulation of the media and electoral fraud is how a candidate like Peña Nieto was able to win.

The real winner was “Televisa,” the spanish speaking mass media company, who created an image of a candidate who serves their interests and destroyed the other participants.

In 2006, as governor of Mexico, Peña Nieto ordered state police to attack a mass mobilization in support of local flower sellers in the town of San Salvador Atenco. Police killed two protesters, sexually assaulted dozens of women, and arbitrarily detained hundreds. The National Human Rights Commission called the attack a grave violation of human rights, but Peña Nieto was not held accountable for it.

German newspapers Die Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung agreed that Peña Nieto was elected thanks to the support of Televisa and that the true meaning of his victory is the return of the old PRI: corruption, fraud and nepotism.

The return of the perfect dictatorship.

According to a popular Mexican newspaper, Pro ceso, on Sept. 15, “Peña Nieto is young and handsome but his party is the embodiment of fraud and corruption. He says the party has good contacts with the drug lords. “

To many of us, the return of PRI and Peña Nieto is the worst setback in Mexican history. The rich people in Mexico are becoming richer and the poor are becoming poorer. With a country in debt, poor people will pay more taxes.

The Obrero Socialista added, “Even before the election was over, Peña Nieto already received official messages of congratulation from all over the capitalist world.”

In a country with institutions full of corruption, the future of 120 millions of Mexicans looks uncertain. Mexico has one of the worst education systems in the world.  Thousands of kids do not even get 6 years of schooling in their lifetimes.

Once again, the PRI used their money and power to buy the dignity and the future of this country.  A country where democracy is just an illusion.

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‘A country where democracy is just an illusion’