ELECTION DAY! (written September 2)

Still, now at 10:30 pm, more than four after hours after polls officially closed, no election results have been released.

I just came back from visiting the center to see what kind of activity there would be in front of the state government building, where one of the city’s main polling places is located. When I first arrived in the Lerdo Plaza in front of the cathedral, about 20 policemen were safeguarding the polling place with an additional 84 (yea, so I counted) riot police on the opposite side of the street. Lining an entire side of the Plaza, the riot police, each with 2 meter long batons in hand, faced off against maybe a hundred people standing in and around the opposition party PT’s campaign tent inside the Plaza. The standoff lasted for nearly an hour until 7pm when the entire squadron of cops suddenly left in a matter of minutes.

One of the PT activists, Rodrigo, who’s been manning the party’s campaign tent in the Plaza for the past five days told me that the PT is committed to maintaining a presence there until they are forcibly removed, which he was almost sure would happen before the 84 police suddenly got up and left. He and the handful of people who are accompanying him in manning the tent are protesting what they believe was the unfair and unjust expulsion by the Federal Voting Institute (IEF) of their party’s candidate, Rafael Hernandez Villalpando, from the race for Municipal President of Xalapa. Over a year ago, they told me, a representative of PRD, Mexico’s traditionally left-of-center party, forged a signature on an agreement that committed PT to joining an alliance with PRD and the Convergence Party. This effectively prevented PT from having its own candidate enter the race, while simultaneously tricking PT supporters into voting for the alliance’s PRD candidate.

In addition to vowing to maintain a presence in the city’s central square and to stage protests throughout the city in the upcoming days, PT is holding a major party convention this Wednesday in Mexico DF, the country’s capital. At the meeting, Rodrigo told me, PT reps from all over the country hope to come to a consensus on how to respond to what they believe was the IEF’s unfounded removal of PT candidates from races throughout the state.

Anyway, by tomorrow afternoon I’ll post the results of the today’s elections. However, for some reason, I don’t think tomorrow will be the last time we talk about the elections. We’ll see.