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Most Mexicans don't want vote recount: poll

Posted on: Saturday, 15 July 2006, 11:39 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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