Behind the confusion

摘要

After a long, dirty and divi-sive campaign, voters in Mexico's presidential election of July 2nd found it desperately hard to choose between Felipe Calderon, a conservative, and the left-of-centre Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. As The Economist went to press, an official recount of the vote seemed poised to match the conclusion of an earlier preliminary tally, giving victory to Mr Calderon by more than 100,000 votes out of 42m. The count will doubtless be contested by his opponent, who had himself claimed victory on election night. Weeks of legal wrangling may follow, attended by the ever-present fear that Mr Lopez Obrador might seek to cause chaos by calling his supporters onto the streets.