The waiting game
The perils of a five-month transition
LIFE sometimes moves slowly in Mexico, and the handover of power is no exception. Whereas Brazil passes on the presidential baton in two months and Colombia does so in seven weeks, Mexico’s president-elect must wait five months before taking office. For Enrique Peña Nieto, who won July’s presidential election as the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and will take office on December 1st, the lengthy limbo brings risks.
One is a news vacuum. This has given undeserved coverage to Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the left-wing candidate who claimed fraud after his narrow defeat in the 2006 election and has done so again after losing by 6.6% this year. He has filed a 638-page dossier alleging cheating by the PRI. The evidence it contains is thin—and surprise, surprise, he is not challenging the election for Congress in which his party did well. But until the electoral tribunal rules on his complaint—it must do so by September 6th—the handover cannot formally begin.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline "The waiting game"
From the August 18th 2012 edition
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