Report on the Mexican Elections

by Dr. Jorge Carpizo

Minister of the Interior

Messrs. Citizen Members.

Mr. Director General and officers of the IFE.

Messrs. Members of the Technical Council of the Voting List.

Messrs. representatives to the voting booths. Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am pleased to deliver, symbolically, a diploma and a medal to the 385,573 citizens who acted as voting booth representatives during the last federal elections held on August 21. They made a good job; with enthusiasm and patriotism, they were trained to carry out that duty on the elections' day, in general terms, their performance was fair and, in many cases, very good, regardless of the fully explainable human mistakes. Mexico, by delivering these acknowledgments to them, pays honor to their high civic sense.

Also, a very special diploma is being delivered to the ten distinguished Mexican scientists and academicians integrating the Technical Council of the Voting List. Their several activities have been extraordinarily valuable for the success of the electoral process. Their knowledge, seriousness, responsibility and honesty do constitute one of the best supports that have backed the electoral process. They have skimped no effort and have been very generous as concerns their time. I want to point out that their acceptance implied political risks, they knew it, given the nature of the duties themselves and of the current times. They never feared such situation. By the contrary, with a great scientific and technical strictness they performed the tasks the General Council of the IFE entrusted them with. Their participants' represent the serious and outstanding academy, committed to the best causes of the country, to which they have helped forward. Those words pronounced by Vicente Guerrero are reflected on you: First and foremost, our nation.

I wish to take advantage of this opportunity for us to meditate, together, on several aspects of the federal electoral day. Both inside and outside the country there exists a great acknowledgement to our elections. However, some organizations and people state that a supposed electoral fraud has been committed. Obviously, such a statement is not surprising, we have been told since months ago that the fraud was being prepared. All their present statements were announced since then. I accept that such statements played a role: The guarantees for having transparent and honest elections were quadruplicated. Most of the proposals presented by the political parties were satisfied. The only proposals that were not accepted were those which did not reach consensus among the parties and those which, for reasons of time, could not be implemented.

Words are useless in these moments. Any and all statements must be sustained by proofs and only proofs.

I invite you to meditate, together, on the supposed fraud mentioned, with such a rancor and peevishness, by some people. 'In the recent months they talked so much of the fraud that now, they seem to find it impossible to evaluate the reality face to face and without subterfuges. According to them, they can not be wrong. They can not accept that the electoral process, with its fully explainable failures and irregularities, considering its magnitude and complexity, did it very well.

Then, let us analyze where such a fraud can be found. Some people say the fraud may be found in the Election Figures. Let us analyze this aspect.

Regarding the mistrust from the political parties towards the government, a very delicate point was the opportuneness and the truthfulness of the voting. results obtained by each party on the 21st of August.

In order to know the results, a new system was available and implemented in the country, built by several social organizations: those figures were to be given, first of all, by highly reputed associations of the community and, some hours later, the IFE would release its own figures with the purpose of building a new mattress of truthfulness. This system would have never been accepted is someone had tried to hide something. Several organizations decided, by their own, or as a result of a respectful exhortation, to carry out a quick counting.

The quick counting is based on the results shown by the voting booth, on real results, on the cardboards containing the voting results that are placed outside each voting booth. It is named quick counting because it is based on a representative sample of the voting booths. If the sample is well designed and well performed, the quick counting coincides with the final results astonishingly. In the United States of America and in many West European countries, the societies are informed on the results of the elections by the quick counting performed by the mass media. This is what happened in Mexico. The novelty in our country is the fact that there were many serious quick counting. This was decided by: Camara Nacional de la Industria de la Radio y Television, Consejo Nacional de Asociaciones de Observación Electoral, Organización Nacional de Observación Electoral del Magisterio, Alianza Civica, Televisión Azteca, Coparmex, Cruzada Democratica Nacional. por el Sufragio Efectivo, Presencia Ciudadana, Diario Reforma, Partido Verde Ecologista de Mexico, Partido Revolucionario Institucional and the Partido del Frente Cardenista de Reconstrucción Nacional. Their results were very similar among each other. The IFE has published them on a table and the parties greatly agree with the results shown by the IFE itself.

Could it be possible to think that all those organizations, so different among themselves, got together to cheat the people of Mexico? Of course, not. They represent many of the most highly reputed social organizations in our nation, that decided to perform the quick counting due to a commitment with the country, in spite of the high economic cost of such counting. Those figures are the real ones, do correspond to the votes deposited into the ballot boxes. It is just impossible that 12 quick countings coincided and perpetrate tricks simultaneously. But, there is even more: All those organizations and the hundreds of thousands of their members are certain that those are real figures shown by the voting. Those are the real figures, the figures decided by the people of Mexico.

2. The IFE made also its own quick counting, designed by members of the Technical Council of the Electoral List and, definitely, its results coincide with those provided by the social organizations.

However, the most important of this aspect was the PREP (Program of Preliminary Electoral Results) which, according to the law, must the carried out by the Director General of the IFE.

It is worthwhile to remember that the PREP was another new instrument in our country;,: it allowed go on accumulating both the results booth by booth just after the booths finished their counting, as well as the result sheets that were delivered to the PREP officers who devoted themselves to transmit them immediately to a collecting center and to send them to the Federal District, in such a way that the society could know the voting trends on a timely basis.

Although it is a responsibility and power of the Director General, the PREP was submitted to the consideration of all the political parties and members of the General Council in a particular way and during a joint meeting. Many of their remarks were included in the PREP. On the elections' day all the computers were subjected to an audit with the presence the representatives of all the political parties, in order to verify the cleanliness of the computers, and those representatives were able to supervise the whole process. The PREP picked up 95.83% of the result sheets of the 96,394 voting booths. In general terms, the PREP worked fair in spite of some insufficiency: it kept from picking up 4.1 % of the voting booths, because in some cases the PREP sheets were introduced into the electoral packages or because they were incorrectly identified. However, that 4.17%, which is now available, does not modify the general trend of the voting. The IFE has a copy of the sheets and, according to the Instructions by the General Council, a sampling verification is presently being performed so as to check that voting at the booths was the one divulged by the PREP.

Besides, an audit is being carried out to the PREP since four days ago in order to certify, with full detail, that its stages and phases had worked properly. The PREP may have worked faster, however, its was submitted to 25 filters so it could leave a record and traces of all the operations, precisely in order to perform the mentioned audit.

Thanks to the PREP, we were able to know a steady trend of the electoral results by the first time in our electoral history.

The votes were recomputed based on the results sheets of the voting booths in each district Council. Those Councils are made up by seven people entitled to vote, and six of them are citizen members. In the events of doubts and under petition by a political party, the electoral packages were opened and the votes were counted, once again, one per one in the presence on the political parties' representatives. The figures shown by the district council are the ones having juridical validity, unless an objection is brought to the Federal Electoral Tribunal, the entity of which shall decide according to the law and on a definitive basis.

There is something evident:

Why did the results of the quick counting, of the PREP, and of the official figures derived from the computations in the District Council coincide? Because all of them derived from the same results sheets, which were drawn up by citizens like you upon the calculation of the votes at the booths and the Councils.

Then, in view of the facts, can someone believe that the voting results were changed? Based on the objective and real data, everybody shall answer this question according to their conscience.

So, where else can that supposed fraud be found?

During the transfer of the ballot boxes from the voting booths to the District Council? No. They were moved, hermetically sealed, by the citizen representatives of the voting booths and accompanied by the political parties' representatives who decided it so.

Besides, the Camara Nacional de la Industria de la Radio y la Televisión made an exit poll, which is a sample of the.voting results; it is carried out by asking the citizen, after leaving the booth, in favor of whom he or she voted for. This poll coincides with the results shown by the quick counting, with those of the PREP and with the counting performed by the District Councils. In this sense, this poll is important because it is made before the electoral packages are moved to the District Councils, when the ballot boxes have not yet been moved from the voting booths.

Can the supposed fraud be found in the behavior of the representatives to the voting booths? No, let us remember that they are citizens like you, that they were selected by two drawings by lot, according to their month of birth and the first letter of their first name. In this way, by the 20th of August, 98.1% of the representatives at the voting boots and the remaining 1.9% were integrated according to the replacement criteria approved by the General Council itself. The citizens that acted as representatives to the voting booths, are certain as to how the whole process was carried out. I am sure that you have listened to the excited report by your relatives, friends or neighbors that complied with this important task. Those wishing to defame these Mexican citizens are perpetrating the serious mistake of considering them as 385,576 electoral offenders; these Mexican citizens are, neither more nor less, the expression of an increasingly participant and involved citizenship.

The voting booths were watched as never before in our history. In more than 90% of them, there were at least two or more political parties' representatives credited. The report on the parties' representatives that actually attended the voting booths, is already being finished. 81,620 persons acted as national observers and 934 as foreign visitors. The several observers' organizations have been issuing their conclusions: the ones that acted on an impartial and equitable basis, ethically and professionally, have enormously benefited the country.

Considering that the rural, and consequently the remotest, zones are the most difficult ones to be observed, the citizen members and I, you humble servant, promoted the creation of a trust, handled by citizens, aimed at providing economic aid to the political parties' representatives and to those observers that decided to watch the remotest rural voting booths. Do you think that we had taken this decision if we had something to hide? Besides, we wanted to break past inertia in those rural areas.

In order to avoid an eventual double voting, we struggled to have a genuine indelible ink. All of us who voted are certain that it. is really indelible. Words are of no use. Besides in order to guarantee that the indelible liquid used during the elections' day was exactly the one approved, a sampling verification is being made in respect of the ink flasks used at the voting booths.

The percentage of the votes cancelled at the booths, which was lower than during the former elections, was equal to 2.9% of the total voting. The reason of this was that the representatives credited to the voting booths, who are citizens like you, were strict as concerns the performance of their task as such and acted under the content of the circular letter they received. This aspect gave rise to some uncertainty and, under petition by the political parties, some electoral packages were opened at the District Councils and it could be proved that the cancelled votes were effectively null votes.

The only serious problem on the elections' day was the lack of ballots at the special voting booths. 687 special booths were installed all over the country, the figure of which represents 0.71% of the national total of booths. On the 28th of February, the political parties, according to the initiative taken by one of them, proposed that those special booths be provided only with 300 ballots. Distrust succeeded even though the IFE's Director General proposed to provide them with 750 ballots and, given the discussion that took place, proposed to cut down the number to 500 ballots. However, not even one ballot more than 300 was accepted. Subsequently, the political party that proposed the number of 300 ballots is the same party that has been saying that those citizens who wanted, but could not, vote at the special booths were "shaved" from the voting list.

Some figures will certainly explain the problem arisen at the special booths. In 1991 there were 930 special booths having 750 ballots' each, and the nominal lists had 36.5 million citizens registered. In 1994 there were only 687 special booths with 300 ballots each and having 45.7 million citizens registered.

From 45.7 million citizens with voter's card, that had the opportunity to resort to the IFETEL service, through the Telephone Information Centers of the Institute, a total of 2,114 calls, not one more, were received from citizens claiming that their names did not appear on the nominal list of their corresponding booth in spite of having their voter's card.

Once each case was duly investigated, it was concluded that 282 were really included in the nominal list; 1,340 citizens had given notice or change of domicile, having requested a voter's card replacement or a data correction without having picked up their new voter's card; in other 223 cases the citizen was dropped from the list by the Programa de Modificación de Situación Ciudadana (Program for the Modification of the Citizen Situation); and in 46 cases the data provided by the citizens were insufficient to make the investigation.

On the other hand, the citizens Members have invited publicly and repeatedly those citizens who wanted, but could not, vote for having not appeared on the nominal lists, to mail a copy of their voter's card. So far, ohly 397 of those voter's cards have been received; the analysis of these shows the following: 59 are really included in the nominal lists while 263 did not appear on the nominal lists for the following reasons attributable to the citizens themselves: change of domiciles, data correction and replacement of the voter's card of which were not finally picked up. Here are their supposed 3, 4, 8 or 10 millions of "shaved citizens".

7. It has been said, such as many other things, that in some voting booths there were more votes than voters. A sample in this respect was made in the 6,000 booths having,to more voting corresponding to the three hundred districts, and no more votes than ballots were found in any of those booths. It has also been said, shockingly, that in some cases the number of ballots removed from the ballot box 'corresponding to an election (whether for President, Senator, Deputy, or for representatives of the Federal District Assembly) was found as triplicating or quadruplicating the number of voters.

In these cases, it has certainly been possible to identify the existence of mistakes related to the filling out of the sheets upon adding the corresponding results to the three or four types of elections, having ascribing them only to one of them, or having repeated such error upon making the addition corresponding to each type of election. Such are the cases, for instance, of voting booth number 207 corresponding to the IV electoral district of Yucatan and booth number 1244 of the IV electoral district of Hidalgo. However, those mistakes committed by representatives at the voting booths did not have any impact upon the results corresponding to each party and for each election.

Then, where is the supposed fraud?

III. "Sure, of course, on the voting list".

They announced since months ago that voting list contained tricks, they have said it to us repeatedly and always with the same arguments. Once again, it is a supposed announced fraud and a fraud announced once and once again.

Let us analyze the main aspects of the voting list, which is the base of the nominal lists and of the voter's card. They are three aspects of the same topic.

1. The 1994 voting list is new. It was started in 1991 through the census method and there exist several programs that updated and made it more perfect; but the most important challenge of the voting list lies precisely on its truthfulness.

2. Why do we state we have a truthful voting list?

From 1991 to 1993 36 audits and verifications were carried out in order to improve it an know its level of truthfulness. On an average bases, such audits and verifications showed that the voting list has a 96% consistency.

Eight political parties decided to perform, and performed, a national sampling verification. Only one party was selfexcluded from this exercise in spite of the repeated invitations made to it by other parties to join this relevant exercise.

The conclusion of this verification was that the level of inconsistencies of the Voting List goes from a minimum 2.37% to maximum 3.91%.

When assuming the chairmanship of the IFE's General Council, l encouraged and resolutely supported to proposal of making an external audit of the voting list. Only one political party objected it, although it always participated with suggestions to include in the conditions of the public bid for that external audit. The Technical Council of the Voting List was created to supervise all the technical aspects of this audit; it is made up by ten distinguished Mexican scientists who reviewed the conditions of the public bid approved by the IFE's General Council and decided to award the performance of the audit to 8 firms which, in turn, were supervised by the Technical Council itself.

The conclusion of the mentioned external audit is that the voting list has a 97.42% consistency.

The Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN), made also a serious an scientific analysis of the voting list which included a sampling verification and a computer-assisted audit having concluded that "...the present voting list has an inconsistency level going from 2.59% to 4.13%, the figure of which, in our opinion, constitutes an acceptable grade or error..."

After having started to perform their duties for the General Council as citizen members on the 3rd of June, six distinguished Mexicans decided to have advisors able to analyze the technical aspects of the voting list. The six citizen-members started studying carefully the several aspects of the voting list, the effort of which led them to express several recommendations and to issue also a reasoned vote through an excellent document stating that the voting list was "valid and definitive".

The nominal lists resulting from the voting list itself, were publicly displayed in two occasions in such a way that all the citizens could have the opportunity to make their own audit. On the first time such nominal lists were displayed at more than 2,600 voter's cards issuing stands, from the 1st to the 30 of April; the second time they were displayed in the municipal offices of all the city halls from the 10th to the 20th of August.

The nominal lists themselves were delivered to all the political parties for purposes of analysis and re-examination, in tapes on June 30, an printed on July 21.

The experts' team pertaining to the United Nations Organization, in its Technical study related to the voting list, stated:

"It can be said that the achievements made on this matter, are among the most significant at international level".

That is to say, a social and very common question prevailing in several parts of the world, wanted to be turned into a catapult, in Mexico, to denounce a supposed fraud.

Under petition by the IFE, a reputed private firm made a verification between the data base of the voting list existing into the computers and the nominal list, and both coincided on a 100% basis; then, in local Councils, a drawing by lot was performed among the political parties in such a way that, when the nominal lists arrived to the districts Councils for being delivered to the boards of the booths, the nominal lists could be compared to those drawn by lot to the political parties; such comparison showed that all the lists coincided on a 100% basis.

Besides, according to instructions given by the General Council, the Technical Council of the Voting List designed a sample to check at the booth on the elections' day, the nominal lists delivered to the parties against those used by the booths' presidents on August 21. Those nominal lists coincided also on a 100% basis.

In spite of the above, some people say that in the voting list there are 3, 4, 8 or 10 million individuals that were "shaved" or that are "ghosts". They have never offered a proof of their statements, but only lucubrations they repeat every time they can.

Fortunately it occurred to them invent such a high number of persons that makes their lucubrations to become a great absurdity.

Just imagine eight million of Mexicans being "shaved", that is to say, existing, Mexicans that made the corresponding arrangements and that were excluded from the voting list. That is just impossible. It would be a scandal of great proportions. Just think of the problem that caused to insufficiency of ballots at the special booths. It would be nonsense to think that it is possible to hide or cheat 3, 5, 8 or 10 millions of Mexicans and that nobody would realize it.

By the contrary, imagine the voting list would contain 3, 5, 8 or 10 millions of "ghosts", just imagine how many millions of Mexicans would be needed to commit the supposed fraud. The Mexican people, who evidenced a great civic sense on August 21, is being told they are a people of millions of electoral offenders. It is really absurd, unbelievable absurd. Just imagine the mentality of those who have dared to invent the Disneyland of the supposed fraud of 1994.

Against those fantasies are 36 internal audits, a national sampling verification, an external audit, the audit performed by the Partido Acción Nacional, the two audits carried out by the citizens themselves, the award determined by the experts' group of the United Nations and the invitations made by the citizen members to those who wanted, but could not, vote and whose names did not appear on the nominal lists.

But, why did not those inventors think of a more believable figure, such as one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand citizens? Because, then, their invention would be wrecked without the practical result they are looking for: a figure like that would not have any consequence upon the final results of the elections.

Conclusion: Mexico has attained to build one of the best, if not the best, voluntary registration voting lists in the world with a truthfulness which, according to the mentioned audits and national verification, is about 96 to 97%. How this fact has affected the presagers of disasters in Mexico!

IV. During the federal elections held on August 21, the Mexicans achieved very positive advances because we had the will to do our best efforts on a joint basis:

1. The 77.73% of the citizens included in the nominal lists voted. This is a percentage reached by very few countries in the world, and the merit is even higher if we consider that before' the elections' day there Were panic rumors in the sense that we should not vote. Of course we voted. We did not allow us fear, and we voted peacefully and quietly. The incidents were really of a minor nature.

Many citizens lined up with their children. What a great civic teaching for those children that accompanying their parents to vote!

Most of the Mexican citizens adopted the civilized way to solve the political problems. This represents a great political asset.

2. 99.97% of the 96,415 voting booths were installed. In other words, only 21 voting booths were not installed.

3. 2,514,828 citizens were trained as booths' representatives and acted in such a capacity, they did it well. They were intended to be subjected to the distrust of the political parties, and they. were overloaded with work and brochures as never before. Some examples are as follows: they had to discharge in a special manner the vote of the citizens who exercised their right to vote based on a resolution adopted by the Federal Electoral Tribunal; they had to ascertain of the identity of the general representatives of the political parties in order to deliver a copy of the results sheet of the booth even of there was no a representative credited to the voting booth; they had to attend the electoral observers and the foreign visitors; they had to impregnate. in a way different from the one proposed at the beginning, the finger of the voters' right hand; they had to write down, as incidents, the cases of the citizens who attended to vote at the booth and whose names did not appear on the nominal list of that voting booth.

In general, these booths' representatives performed well or very well their tasks. Did they made any mistakes?, of course they did, but most of them were due to their education grade, to the complexity of their tasks or the novelty of the system, but they were in no case the result of a deceitful attitude or bad faith, and it must be taken into account that the booths' representatives worked under pressure exercised by the voters themselves, by the representatives of the political parties, by the national observes and by the foreign visitors, and that they were demanded to act as if they had a master degree. The IFE's General Council, at the last minute, still agreed new methods as to the operation of the voting booths. New circular letters and instructions were transmitted to the booths' representatives. It seemed as if the General Council had told them; you can more, more and more. The political parties were privileged above the citizens: this is another results of the distrust. I repeat: the booths' representatives rose to the occasion of the circumstances, in spite of the natural mistakes committed in some cases. What a good sense and great maturity shown by the Mexican people on August 21! I am surprised and feel proud of the Mexicans.

V. Now then, the 1994 federal election was prepared with a lot of care.

Many, changes were introduced since January aimed at providing the citizens and the political parties with the guarantee that we would have really clear and transparent elections. Let me mention some of the most important reforms in this period of time, and of which I have not talked in this opportunity and that were the result of the consensus among the main political forces in the country:

The member bodies of the IFE "citizened": at the General Council3 of the eleven votes, six pertain to very distinguished Mexicans to whom I wish to express my respect. At the local and district Councils, six of seven members entitled to vote are citizen members. During this period of time, 34 local members, 212 district members and 122 citizen members were replaced.

It has been said that the citizen members joined' the electoral process late. That is true. We were making the constitutional, legal and administrative amendments fifteen and five minutes before twelve on the elections' days, the fact of which evidences the great political will that prevailed for that purpose. However, the work performed by the citizen members has been very valuable: there are the results.

It has also been said that not all of the officers and citizen members that should have been replaced were replaced. I will frankly tell you I do not know it, because there was an immense opening from us in such a way that all, absolutely all the officers and citizen members could be objected. In this sense, an agreement was signed by the three main political parties in the country on February 9, and the 5th of March was fixed as the deadline to finish the process of objections. As an evidence of the political will, this term was extended several times up to the 27th of May, and some cases were even analyzed one month later. Obviously, this fact gave rise to a situation of uncertainty and instability for all the staff of the Federal Electoral Institute. This is how we have worked during these months, always under big and evident risk, but we did it to show the political will to make our electoral institutions more perfect.

Some other aspects we should point out are as follows: A new legislation related to electoral crimes and the creation of a Special Inspection Office for purposes of knowledge and juridical decisions.

The creation of a committee, integrated by all the political parties, aimed at analyzing the programs and the supervision of the electoral training to the citizens selected at random to act as booths' representatives.

The sticking of the electoral ballots to a numbered stub for their due control.

The installation of dividers to secure the secrecy of the vote

As concerns the electronic mass media, the free times to the political parties increased by 180% versus those granted in 1991, the political parties were provided with additional time on radio for the broadcasting of daily promotionals paid by the IFE, as well as free time for special programs such as the T.V. debates.

According to the monitoring performed by the IFE itself, some progress was achieved in some aspects as regards a higher fairness on the mass media, such as the case of the news programs and the campaign closings of the presidential candidates.

During thee ten days previous to the elections' day, the paid parties' propaganda was suspended on the mass media, with the exception of that related to the campaign closings.

The social communication campaign of the programs named Procampo and Pronasol, was suspended during the month of August.

The agreement reached by the IFE's General Council in the sense that the electoral Packages shall not be destroyed but until six months elapse after the end of the electoral process.

VI. And so, was the electoral process of August 21 perfect?

Of course not. There prevailed problems, abnormalities and human mistakes, committed both by some IFE's officers, as well as by some booths' representatives, and by some of the young persons who transmitted the PREP information, but there was neither an intentional pattern on those abnormalities nor deceit to benefit or hurt a given political party.

The juridical order provides the resources for the political parties can enforce their rights, for their arguments and proofs be analyzed. The Federal Electoral Tribunal' will be the agency accountable for adopting the juridical resolutions in each concrete case, and not sayings but proofs and only proofs are important.

The Tribunal is made up by distinguished and honorable jurists, and the superior court is integrated by the Chairman of the Tribunal and four magistrates pertaining to the Federal Judicial Power.

In former months when a great national political debate was held over our electoral system, nobody disputed the Tribunal nor its constituent parts. In recent days l have read two censures. Do you think that those people who have criticized the whole electoral process, will respect the jurisdictional decisions not benefiting them, or will they try to turn their condemnations into political controversies? What is your opinion in this respect?

Also, during the electoral process and on the elections' day there were supposedly criminal behaviors that have been denounced to the Special Inspection Office; the latter, according to the proofs contained in the previous investigations, shall decided whether to apply or not the penal action.

In this way, for the abnormalities as well as for the presumed electoral offenses, there exist the juridical ways to solve them. It is necessary to apply, in all cases, the laws on a timely basis and, where the proofs avail it, to overcome the abnormalities or to exercise the penal action. A person who had perpetrated a deceitful action shall in no way be excused, but the intention to dirty, without a proof or an oblique methodology, the elections held on August 21, is not a valid action since it has already become a part of the achievements made by the .Mexican people.

VII. Does Mexico already have the electoral system we all wish. to have?

No. We still have more to do even though the Mexicans have made a great progress as concerns the preparation and the elections held on August 21. I feel very proud of the Mexicans and of being Mexican. At the end of the assembly of the IFE's General Council and which ended on the 22nd at 4:30 hours, I declared: "I think that we all together performed the constitutional, legal and administrative reforms that have been the juridical framework of these elections, I think it our turn to judge these aspects, but I am sure that a lot of irreversible progress has been made. Also, more will still have to be done". President Salinas himself' has acknowledged it in this way during its report delivered on August.

According to this idea, there are still some aspects to be perfected and amendments to be made. The main political parties shall reach a consensus to go on progressing on aspects of our electoral democracy such as: a higher equity in the conditions of the electoral contest, strengthen!ng of a real system of political parties, to conclude the process of removing the public powers from the electoral bodies and more precise definitions on the role planned by the mass media concerning the electoral competition.

We Mexicans voted on August 21 for peace and against violence; we voted in favor of changes within the juridical order. We did not vote for fear. By the contrary, 77.73% of the citizens who voted, did it convincingly and went out precisely to that, to vote peacefully and cheerfully.

Many arguments and many words can be said. The most important is that you saw and felt that 21st of August. You lived it and you have your own criterion.

The may like the voting results or not, we may agree or disagree with them, but they do express the decision taken by the people and, in a democracy, we are bound to respect them. We still lack some aspects to make our democracy more perfect. Of course we lack them, therefore amendments and reforms such as those mentioned must be made, but it also implies to strengthen a democratic culture and mentality; the votes by the people are sacred, they are not to be disputed, they are not to be disputed, they are accepted and, in the event of abnormalities, then the existing juridical remedies shall be used to solve them.

I wish to make a special mention' of those who, from their respectable position as social communicators, reporters, journalists, chroniclers, radio, television and newspapers commentators, devoted themselves to inform the Mexican society on the development of the electoral process, with veracity and objectivity. The full respect for the freedom of speech is one of the main rights the human being has, which must be exercised with responsibility.

I express my acknowledgment to the thousands of Mexicans integrating the boards of the political parties, who acted with wisdom and patriotism, with 'legality and emotion. Their work becomes more outstanding if compared to the exceptions, which always exist.

In several occasions I have invited the Mexican society to tell the truth, always the truth, to fight the culture of falsity. Truth always wins. During this electoral process the IFE's General Council has instructed to perform 22 audits and technical reports, exactly you know the truth, among them are: The Report on the replacement of boots' representatives on the elections' day, the Report on the coincidence between the quantity and the numbered ballots delivered to the booths' presidents an the date written down on the respective sheets, and the Report on the results of the verification of the nominal lists used by the booths' presidents on the elections' day. Many of those reports are now ready. Others will be ready in the coming days and weeks and, together with the resolutions by the Federal Electoral Tribunal, The full truth of the electoral process will be known.

Today, synthetically, I have expressed to you my truth on the this electoral process. I have decided to continue to deepen on truth and tell it to the Mexican society in the future.

We Mexicans, Within our diversity and pluralism, wish to go on together in.order to continue to make our political democracy' progress, considering the social democracy progress, considering the social democracy: fight against poverty.

We Mexican must place the interest of the country before our own interests or the interests of a group. We Mexicans shall always be led by that sacred sentence pronounced by a hero, a martyr and a patriot:

First and foremost, our nation.

ADDENDUM 1

QUICK COUNTINGS WHICH FULFILLED THE

"GENERAL CRITERIA OF POLLS BY SAMPLE,

On the 20th of August, the Federal Electoral Institute published the list of organizations which sent their method for doing Quick Countings related to the presidential-election, and which fulfilled the "General Criteria of Polls by Sample", approved by the General Council on the 29th of July 1994. Quick Countings are samples - taken from selected voting booths or voting sections where the source of information is the results sheet.

In addition to the Quick Counting's results obtained by the above mentioned organizations, those from the Program of Preliminary Electoral Results (PREP) and those from the Quick Counting done by the Federal Electoral Institute itself, are included below. The results of the four political parties which obtained the highest percent of votes, are published in order of party registration.

Always and forever: First and foremost, our nation.

       IFE-PREP
13hrs./26th August1994

Organismos Auscultadores:


             IFE
        Quick Counting

    Camara Nacional de la
Industria de Radio
y Televisión (CIRT)

 Consejo Nacional de
   Asociaciones de
Observación Electoral

  Organización Nacional
     de Observación
Electoral del Magisterio

Alianza Civica

TV AZTECA

COPARMEX

Cruzada Democratica
      Nacional

Presencia Ciudadana

Diario Reforma
     PVEM

PRI

PFCRN


Resultados de dichas encuestas, en el mismo orden.


PAN	PRI	PRD
26.80%	50.06%	17.06%
26.80%	49.30%	15.80%
28.20%	50.70%	@ 7.10%
27.00%	50.00%	16.00%
26.67%	50.49%	17.63%
25.83%	48.89%	16.91%	
27.75%	47.85%	15.24%
24.10%	51.80%	17.30%
27.90%	49.10%	13.70%
26,@%	50.30%	17.10%
29.30%'	48.90%	13.80%
29.70%	49.70%	14.70%
31.59%	46.88%	15.1@%
25.00%	50.00%	15.00%
22.70%	43.70%	22.10%

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