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Fraude México 2006, Directed by Luis Mandoki, Contra El Viento Films, DVD Region 4 (Spanish), 2007, color, video, 110 min., $24.99.
To argue that Mexican elections have faced problematic irregularities in the past is most likely a polite understatement. This is the theme of Luis Mandoki's 2007 documentary, Fraude México 2006 which argues that the Mexican presidential election of 2006 was tainted by fraud. In that election the Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN) candidate Felipe Calderón Hinojosa was declared the winner over Roberto Madrazo from the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), and Andrés Manuel López Obrador from the Partido de la Revolución Democrático (PRD). Madrazo, who finished a poor third in the election with 22.3% of the vote, accepted the results. Lopéz Obrador, who was in a virtual tie with Calderón Hinojosa (35. 3% to 35.9%, a difference of under 250,000 out of approximately 42 million votes cast), unsuccessfully challenged the election results.
The film begins with a short retrospective to questionable presidential election results in Mexico. Mandoki takes the viewer back to Carlos Salinas de Gortari's presidential inauguration on December 1, 1988. This election is thought by many to have been stolen from Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas, one of the founders of the PRD. From the beginning, the film claims that litde has changed since in Mexico, despite the peaceful handover in 2000 to the conservative PAN after more than seventy years of one-party PRI rule.
Moving on to the disputed 2006 presidential election, Mandoki uses footage from ordinary citizens filmed during the elections and the subsequent recount protest period. The film features long interview segments with Andrés Manuel López Obrador as well as his voice-over to footage of the masses gathered in Mexico City's Zócalo. The subde, original piano score is highly emotive.
López Obrador cites Salvador Allende, democratically...