Mexico electoral court hears arguments for presidential recount News
Mexico electoral court hears arguments for presidential recount

[JURIST] The seven judges of Mexico's Federal Electoral Tribunal [official website, in Spanish] Saturday heard arguments by lawyers for leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador [campaign website, in Spanish] for a full recount of the July 2 presidential poll which Obrador lost by 0.6 percent [JURIST report] to conservative Felipe Calderon [campaign website, in Spanish]. Obrador's legal team is arguing that there were errors, falsifications and other problems at over half of Mexico's 130,000 polling places, and that a recount would clarify any dispute concerning the election. Calderon, however, maintains that "the election was clean, it was competitive, it was closely observed." The Electoral Tribunal must declare a winner or annul the election by September 6.

Last week Obrador filed a criminal complaint [JURIST report] against the Federal Electoral Institute [official website, in Spanish], the commission that oversaw the vote. Pending a resolution of the electoral crisis, Obrador is continuing to encourage "peaceful civil resistance" [JURIST report], and has organized supporters for another mass protest Sunday. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.