Director Luis Mandoki, in his 2007 documentary Fraud: Mexico 2006, exposed the many frauds that marred the 2006 Mexican presidential election. The film was compiled from 3,000 hours of amateur video. ‘Why are you filming?’ a contributor was asked. ‘Because my ballot paper is in that box. And what you’re doing is illegal. You’re opening the envelopes and everything will have to be recounted.’ In the election, everything possible was done to impede the favourite, former Mexico City mayor Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador (‘AMLO’) of the centre-left PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution).

Hostile media coverage of AMLO began months before the election. He was attacked not only by opponents in the centre-right Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and rightwing National Action Party (PAN), but by the CCE (Business Coordinating Council). The CCE breached electoral law by producing attack ads targeting AMLO, mostly broadcast by the big media groups Televisa and TV Azteca: ‘If López Obrador became president, he would get us even deeper into debt and we’d have an economic crisis, devaluation, unemployment … You could lose your house and your job... Don’t vote for crisis.’ The employers’ association Coparmex raised fear of violence with ads alluding to Bolivarian revolution, comparing AMLO with Hugo Chávez.

On 2 July 2006, 41 million Mexicans voted. Others were prevented from doing so. Thousands of people had vanished from the electoral roll. ‘It’s a dirty trick. I’m registered, but my name isn’t on the list so I can’t vote,’ an exasperated Mexico City resident shouted at the camera. ‘IFE [the former Federal Electoral Institute, now replaced by the National Electoral Institute, INE] costs us a huge amount of money, but it’s a farce: they’re going to force [Felipe] Calderón [the PAN candidate] on us. It’s all planned.’

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