MEXICO: A "vote by vote" campaign has rallied Mexicans demanding a national recount of last month's presidential election and triggered two weeks of civil disobedience by supporters of runner-up Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
But despite the popularity of the call to hold a full recount in an election that ended with a difference of less than 1 percentage point, experts said legal hurdles make this unlikely - especially given initial reports that a court-ordered partial recount completed on Sunday showed no apparent pattern of fraud.
Mexico's seven-judge Federal Elections Tribunal, which has final authority over the July 2nd poll, appears bound by law and its own decisions over the past decade to declare winner Felipe Calderon the president or else call for a new election, the experts say. The panel began reviewing the recount yesterday.
"Even if fraud or widespread mistakes are found, they are more likely to throw out the election than order a full recount," said Todd Eisenstadt, a political scientist at American University in Washington, who has reviewed hundreds of tribunal cases and written a book on Mexico's electoral court.
The tribunal ordered a recount of 9 per cent of the nation's polling stations in an August 5th decision that indicated opposition among its members to a full recount. Justices said voting packets could only be reopened where there was evidence of irregularities.
Mr Lopez Obrador, the left-wing candidate, has picked up several thousand additional votes in the five-day recount, according to unofficial tallies leaked to Mexican papers. Most of the changes appear to be small counting errors.
New votes found in favour of Mr Lopez Obrador are evidence of fraud, say his campaign leaders. But the votes he has gained are far short of the 244,000 needed to pass out Mr Calderon in the official but still uncertified count. About 41 millions votes were cast.
At a rally before thousands of supporters in Mexico City on Sunday, Mr Lopez Obrador seemed to be preparing his followers for a tribunal ruling in favour of Mr Calderon. He urged his followers to engage in acts of civil disobedience should that happen.
In opinion polls, almost half of Mexicans say they want a national recount.
Mr Lopez Obrador's attorneys argue that there was cheating at the elections. Evidence includes a number of polling stations with fewer votes on official tally sheets than ballots taken by voters and, in some cases, more votes tallied than ballots given out, said Arturo Nunez, one of these lawyers.
But the candidate's street campaign for a vote-by-vote recount has made his lawyers' job tougher.
He has simultaneously called for a full recount and declared that the election was tainted by fraud. The contradictory positions - why recount a fraudulent election? - have weakened his legal argument.
Mr Lopez Obrador's attorneys could still call for an annulment of the election. "Lopez Obrador really thinks he won, and if he's right, this is a big deal," one legal expert said.
"A full recount would find culprits if there was fraud. It still could happen but it would much more difficult now."