Trust in elections: Mexico shows how fast it can be lost – and regained
Donning a black suit and a red, green, and white presidential sash, the man raised his right hand and swore his allegiance to the Mexican people as their “legitimate president.” A crowd of tens of thousands of supporters packed into the historic Zócalo plaza to hear him.
The problem? He had lost the election months earlier.
Perhaps one of the most infamous cases of a defeated presidential candidate claiming fraud and refusing to concede, for nearly two months in 2006 Andrés Manuel López Obrador organized protests and encampments in downtown Mexico City, driving the capital to a halt and feeding distrust in the electoral system. He’d lost by just a 0.56 percentage point, and his request for a total recount was denied by the top electoral court. Voter confidence in
