Obrador wont quit

last updated 8 January 2015

Mexico City

Mexico’s top electoral court last week declined to order a recount in July’s presidential election, securing the victory of conservative Felipe Calderón. But after the ruling, defeated leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador told his followers to prepare for a long fight. Obrador, who last month lost to Calderon by 243,000 votes out of 41 million votes cast, claims the election was stolen. Hundreds of thousands of his followers have set up camp along Mexico City’s main thoroughfare, the Paseo de la Reforma, snarling traffic and staging daily protests. In an address to his followers, Obrador this week refused to concede defeat. “We are going to change this reality of injustice and oppression,” he said, “that has done so much damage to this country.”