ABSTRACT
After the July 1988 presidential election in Mexico, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Mexico City. Opposition parties were alleging vote fraud, and contesting the electoral results that declared the ruling party's presidential candidate, Carlos Salinas, the winner. This chapter explores the relationship between models of electoral governance and the behaviour of opposition parties. Electoral fraud is difficult to identify and operationalise. It may be covert and designed to remain undetected, or stem from decisions made well before an election campaign even starts. The most common vulnerability is in the bureaucratisation dimension, followed by the delegation and specialisation dimensions. Opposition parties only oppose electoral results when they know that the model of electoral governance is vulnerable to fraud and manipulation whether they are formally independent or not. Electoral governance matters for the compliance of opposition parties to election results.
