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Conservative wins Mexico presidential; leftist rival challenges vote
El Norte
Felipe Calderon, presidential candidate of the National Action Party (PAN), celebrates at his party headquarters in Mexico City, July 6, 2006.By Patrick Moser
AFP
MEXICO CITY
Petroleumworld.com 07 06 06Conservative Felipe Calderon won Mexico's presidential election by a razor-thin margin, according to official results posted Thursday, which his leftist rival said he will challenge in court.
"The candidate who received the most votes is Felipe Calderon," Federal Election Institute (IFE) chief Luis Carlos said, adding that the presidential vote, the closest ever in Mexico, was "clean and transparent."
Calderon of the governing National Action Party (PAN) had 35.88 percent and a lead of 236,006 votes, or 0.57 points, over Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the standard-bearer of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
Claiming the electoral process was marred by irregularities, Lopez Obrador, 52, announced he will contest the outcome of the July 2 election in court and request a manual recount of the ballots.
"We have taken the decision to challenge the electoral process," said Lopez Obrador, raising the specter of the 2000 US presidential election, when legal wrangling and recounts in the state of Florida held up the outcome by five weeks.
"We have triumphed and this is what we will demonstrate to the tribunal," he said.
Calderon insisted the votes had been counted and verified and that there was no need for a recount.
A preliminary count conducted immediately after the election gave Calderon a 0.6-point advantage over his rival, and the recount of tallies sent in by the 130,500 polling stations, which concluded Thursday, confirmed the narrow lead.
"Now is the time for conciliation," Calderon said after the results were posted by the IFE, which is now due to hand over to the electoral tribunal, the final arbiter of electoral disputes.
The tribunal must validate the outcome by September 6.
The confirmation of the president-elect had been a mere formality in the two previous presidential elections held since the tribunal was created, but Mexicans may now be kept on tenterhooks for weeks, if not months.
Washington had kept a close eye on the electoral nail-biter, evidently hoping to see a reversal of the trend that brought several leftists to power in Latin America over recent years.
A pro-business conservative, Calderon had capitalized on fears that a Lopez Obrador victory would plunge Mexico into an economic crisis, and likened him to Venezuela's virulently anti-US President Hugo Chavez, a comparison analysts generally dismiss.
Calderon, 43, has served as energy minister in the cabinet of President Vicente Fox, whose 2000 victory ended 71 years of authoritarian rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
During his campaign, he portrayed himself as the candidate for economic stability and employment.
But Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who champions the cause of the downtrodden, claims Calderon represents a government that served the wealthy to the detriment of millions of impoverished Mexicans.
A free-trade advocate, Calderon has vowed to complete fiscal reforms as well as labor and energy projects that were stymied during the Fox government for want of congressional support.
He has said he would seek congressional alliances to ensure the projects can be realized.
The PAN will become the main congressional party after winning about 34 percent of the seats in both the House and the Senate on July 2, but will not have an outright majority.
The new president will take office on December 1 for a six-year term.
AFP 07 0022 GMT 07 06
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