Most Mexicans don’t want vote recount: poll

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Most Mexicans do not agree with the
losing leftist candidate’s call for a vote-for-vote recount of
the presidential election that gave a narrow victory to
conservative Felipe Calderon, a poll showed on Saturday.

Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says the election was
riddled with fraud and has launched a legal challenge against
the result.

He has asked an electoral court to carry out a
vote-for-vote recount, beyond the original count and the tally
sheet recount last week that showed Calderon the winner by 0.58
of a percentage point.

Sixty percent of people polled by Reforma newspaper said
they did not want a new recount, compared to 37 percent who
backed Lopez Obrador’s proposal.

But the question put to interviewees in the poll did not
mention the allegations of fraud. It only asked if the votes
should be counted a third time.

Most people believe the election results are trustworthy
and 75 percent think the Federal Electoral Institute that
organized the vote is impartial, the poll showed.

Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, has
organized a huge demonstration in the capital for Sunday to
back his cause.

Several hundred thousand people were expected to march down
a main avenue to the huge Zocalo square.

The electoral court is to rule on Lopez Obrador’s
challenges by August 31 and name a president-elect by September
6. It has the power to order recounts in districts where there
were fraud but many legal experts say Mexican law does not
allow it to call a recount of the whole vote.

The telephone poll of 605 people was conducted on Thursday
13 and has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.