NBC: Mexican election becomes telenovela

MEXICO CITY - “Fraud! Fraud!" they shouted as they stood in a steady downpour. The noisy demonstration, by supporters of candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, capped a bizarre evening in Mexico's presidential election.

One of Mexico's most popular exports to the United States are "telenovelas," Spanish-language soap operas that command huge audiences among Latinos.  This election has turned into its own sort of telenovela, complete with cliffhanger suspense designed to keep people tuning in.

An official told a national television audience that the results wouldn't be available until after a detailed recount of millions of ballots later this week.  So, Mexicans will have to wait to learn whether their new president is a leftist who styles himself as a champion of the poor or a pro-business conservative who says his opponent's policies will drive Mexico into bankruptcy.

That didn't stop both front-runners from declaring victory. The candidate on the left, López Obrador, joined his angry supporters in Mexico City's central plaza and told them, "Smile: We've already won."

His conservative opponent, Harvard-educated Felipe Calderón, claimed that exit polls and the first, unofficial count show him ahead.  "We have no doubt that we have won," he said, but added that he would wait for the official tabulation. He said he was sure that the authorities would declare him the victor.

Unity elusive
"When I am president," he said, "I will call for a government of national unity."  But at this moment, unity appears to be an elusive goal. Calderón's supporters fear that if he is declared the winner, followers of his opponent will protest in the streets, ushering in a period of civil unrest.

The Mexican media scrambled to make sense of the stalemate: "Now we're beginning to look like the United States," said political commentator Lorenzo Meyer in a television interview. Indeed, this extremely close race evokes memories of the 2000 U.S. presidential election, which was settled by the Supreme Court in favor of George W. Bush.

A popular Mexico City newspaper, Excelsior, carried a one-word headline Monday: “¿Quién?”  Spanish for "Who?"  Another, El Universal, declared, "They Fight Vote for Vote."

"Democracy is messy," said Mexican historian Enrique Krauze, borrowing the line that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld used to describe Iraq's struggles.  "The new president is going to have to form coalitions," he said, noting the deep divisions in this country between rich and poor, north and south.

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