Cool, a media that will not release exit polls during...or even after...the election. That raises one brow and then the other.
Actually, it doesn't. The reason for not releasing results from the exit polls while the election is in progrees is to avoid influencing those that haven't voted yet.
After the polls were closed, and in order to avoid situations that would resemble what happened in the USA in 2000, the media decided to wait until the official announcement from the Federal Electoral Institute. This announcement, that coincided with the media's own polls, was that the quick count results were too close to determine a winner.
As far as I could see, the two major TV networks have covered the election very professionally. Perhaps Donks will agree, or maybe he saw things that I didn't. IMO, the TV coverage has been much more objective and less speculative or biased that the American TV coverage of the 2000 and 2004 elections in the USA.
The current situation is this:
Three hours after the polls closed on Sunday, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE, as they call it here) announced that the quick count results did not show a clear winner, declared that we would have to wait until Wednesday for the official results, and requested that the political parties, candidates, media, unions, etc., refrain from proclaiming any type of victory or results, since there were no facts to base them on.
Shortly after this announcement, and despite the request from the IFE, the PRD (leftist) candidate appeared on national TV and proclaimed that their exit polls showed that they had won the election by 500,000 votes.
Next came the PAN (conservative), and affirmed that the results from their own exit polls, plus the preliminary results from the IFE, showed he was the winner.
The main problem with these premature victory declarations, specially from the populist PRD candidate, is that he will use these exit poll results as "proof" of fraud in case he doesn't win. He already has made accusations of irregularities at the polls, and demands a ballot by ballot recount (the preliminary results are based on the summary documentation provided by each voting center). This strategy of declaring oneself the winner beforehand and then arguing there was fraud if the actual results say otherwise, has been used for decades in Mexico, and usually leads to local demostrantions and occasional skirmishes.
At this moment, with 98.45% of the 130,788 voting centers processed, the results favor the conservative PAN by 36.38% to 35.34%.
ETA: The Mexican stock market rose today 4.77% (the second greatest increase in the year), as the preliminary results showed the conservative candidate ahead.
