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Mexican president-elect moves to form new government, calling for unity

AS/COA’s Vice President Eric Farnsworth analyzes the potential impact of Mexico´s opposition party call for civil disobedience to protest the election of Enrique Peña Nieto as the country´s new president.

Enrique Pena Nieto, who was declared as Mexico's president-elect, is moving to form a transitional team, calling for unity amid opposition supporters protest.

"It is time to look forward and to start to build and work together," Nieto said in a broadcast speech after accepting Friday a certificate from the nation's Supreme Electoral Tribunal awarding him victory.

"Within days I will publish the names of my transition team. I want to make sure the transition will be orderly and transparent," said the president-elect from Mexico's Institutional Revolution Party (PRI).

Mexico's Supreme Electoral Tribunal on Friday formally declared Nieto, who won 20 percent more votes than the second place candidate, as the nation's president-elect. He is set to rule the country from December 2012 to November 2018.

Right ahead of Nieto's speech, the tribunal's president Jose Alejandro Luna Ramos said that the tribunal had done sterling work defending the nation's democracy.

"Voters expressed themselves freely in this election," Ramos said. "At every stage of the process, the principles of objectivity and certainty were preserved."

He said that tribunal workers had handled more than 2,000 complaints about the process since last October, when the election campaign formally began.

"The time for normal state activity has come. It is time for moderation and sense to rule," he added.

Earlier on Friday, the tribunal formally threw out opposition demands to nullify the nation's July general election….

"I think Lopez Obrador is a spent force," said Eric Farnsworth, analyst at the Council of the Americas." The Mexican people have spoken and he's been rejected twice, so I don't think many people will heed his call for disobedience at this point...."
 

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