If there’s a contested election, who has the final say? In the 2000 U.S. election, the U.S. Supreme Court had the final say. Needless to say, everybody wasn’t happy about it. But somebody has to have the final say. In Mexico’s 2006 presidential election, the federal electoral court had the final say. On September 5th, at 12:06 p.m., the seven-member court declared Felipe Calderon the election of the hotly-contested election held on July 2nd. The election was a real squeaker. Neither Calderon, nor his opponent Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (known in the media as AMLO) received a majority of the votes. Each got about 37% and the difference between the two was only a quarter of a million votes, out of more than 41 million total votes.

The Mexican electoral court was specially designed to resolve disputed elections. It was established in 1996 and is the final authority on elections in Mexico. Given its special function, the court was formed by an elaborate selection process. There were hundreds of applicants for the membership on the court. Out of the hundreds of applicants, the list was whittled down to the final 7 members. The goal was to have a court composed of judges with no political affiliation. The Mexican Supreme Court had its say in selecting the judges. The three major political parties (including AMLO’s party ) had to approve the membership . And the Mexican Congress unanimously approved the composition of the electoral tribunal . Each electoral judge receives a salary of $415,000 dollars a year, making them the highest paid officials in Mexico. The purpose of the high salary is to reduce the chance of members being bribed.

For the past ten years the court has resolved electoral disputes. In fact, it’s ruled on 20,000 electoral disputes in Mexico. The court has annulled 17 elections, and has ruled against all three major parties

And on September 5th, in the biggest case of its history, the Mexican electoral court ruled on a disputed presidential election. Nevertheless, Lopez Obrador has refused to accept the ruling, insisting that he was robbed . His political allies threaten to prevent Calderon from taking office on December 1st, as scheduled. We’d better keep an eye on this one…

Allan Wall (allan39@prodigy.net.mx) recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq currently resides in Mexico.