then we'll take two or three questions from the audience very briefly and then we'll call on pablo gutierrez from the ois to wrap things up. >> thank you. well, i think that the criticism against poland and mexico, we can divide mauricio said between political reasons and technical reasons. addressing the political ones, most of the polls, or practically all the polls two weeks before the election were more or less on the same pace. obviously we have to look into what happened. of course, the easy explanation is to say that electoral preferences change. all the polls that were published were conducted one week before the election. we know that one out of five voters one week before the election still had doubts about whom they would, whom they could support on election day. secondly, as i showed you, the groups of lapes salvador did better, these are the more volatile in political terms groups in mexico, even during the campaign if you look at the preferences of these groups, they show a lot of change, so probably there was something to it, some volatility, but i want you to think about the

thanking our panel. [ applause ] and we're going to transition right away, i'm going to introduce pablo gutierrez, he's the director of the department of electoral cooperation and monitoring at the organization of american states. they led an electoral observation mission to mexico for these elections that was led by former colombian president cesar garvidia. pablo was instrumental in this process and i invited him to talk a little bit about their official observation of the election and what they saw and witnessed there. thank you, pablo. >> may i start to say that when i listened of course to the presentations, i'm thinking we have a problem in america, because the same issues in mexico is in el salvador, hondur honduras, ecuador, peru, buying votes or the social programs or the first lady, whatsoever, so we have a big issue in latin america in the electoral system. i want to start saying that i think there is a big difference between the 2006 and the last election in mexico that the results are not in question in mexico. there are problems in the electoral process, but the results are not in q

i'm -- [applause] i'm going to introduce pablo gutierrez, he's the director of the department of cooperationn of american states. they led an electoral observation mission to mexico for these elections that was led by former colombian president cesar gavida. obviously, pablo was very instrumental in this process, and i have invited him to talk a little bit about their official observation of the election and what they saw and witnessed there. thank you, pablo. appreciate -- >> thank you, eric. may i start saying that when i listened, of course, to the presentations, i'm thinking we have a problem in america. because the same issues in mexico we see in el salvador, in honduras, in ecuador, in peru, so buying votes or the social programs or the first ladies or whatsoever, so we have a big issue in latin america in the electoral system. i want to start saying that i think there's a big difference between the 2006 and the last election in mexico that the results are not in question in mexico. there are problems in the electoral process, but the results are not questioned in mexico, and that's ou

then we would take a few questions from the audience and then we will call on pablo gutiÉrrez to wrapthings up. >> i think the criticism against the polling in mexico -- we can divide between political reasons and technical reasons. addressing the political ones. as i showed you, most of the polls, practically all of them, two weeks before the election, more or less, on the same page. obviously, we have to look into what happened. of course, the easy explanation is to say electoral preference has changed. all the polls that were published were conducted before the election. we know one out of five voters one week before the election still had doubts about whom they would support on election day. secondly, as i showed you, the group where open -- lopez obrador did better was with the young people and college- educated people. this is the more volatile, in terms of political, in mexico. but even if you look at the preferences of these groups, they show a lot of change. probably there was something to it, some volatility. but i want you to think about the political argument. when i hear