MEXICO: Conservative candidate Felipe Calderon has won the final official count of Mexico's presidential poll by a razor-thin margin, but his main rival, the leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (known as Amlo), has vowed to contest the result.
With 99.56 per cent of the vote counted, Mr Calderon had 35.82 per cent and Amlo 35.37 per cent, with three other candidates sharing the remainder.
"We cannot accept these results," Amlo said yesterday at his campaign headquarters. "We triumphed and we are going to prove it." The charismatic champion of Mexico's downtrodden said he would take his claim that the election was full of irregularities to the electoral tribunal within the four days allowed by law. He also called supporters to an assembly in the capital's central plaza tomorrow, suggesting a strategy of street protests.
About 42 million Mexicans voted in Sunday's election after a protracted and often dirty campaign. It was the first presidential poll since 71 years of single-party rule ended in 2000.
The provisional count immediately after polls closed gave Mr Calderon, the governing party candidate, an advantage of one percentage point, but this was deemed inconclusive by the electoral authorities.
The final official count of the tally sheets that accompany each ballot box began on Wednesday.
Usually little more than a formality to confirm the provisional result, this count had the nation on tenterhooks through the night.
Amlo led until shortly before dawn when tallies from Calderon strongholds reversed the situation.
Minutes later, a beaming Mr Calderon addressed hundreds of cheering supporters at his headquarters and called for the result to be respected.
"This has been the most competitive election we've ever had," he said. "But it has been the most democratic in Mexico's history."
A few hours later, Amlo shot back that his rival should be ashamed to declare himself the winner. "They know that there is nothing to celebrate. They know what they did," he said.
The Amlo camp claims Mr Calderon's supporters and the government orchestrated a subtle fraud while the votes were being counted so that the tally sheets did not reflect reality.
They want the tribunal to order all the ballot boxes opened so there can be a vote-by-vote recount.
According to a strict reading of the law, opening the boxes would annul the election.
This is not the first time the left has been so close to, and yet so far from, power.
In 1988, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas was winning the election when a computer failure stopped the count. When the lights came back on, he had lost.
Many on the left who were bitter that Mr Cardenas did not defend his claim to power more energetically hope Amlo will not give up pushing his case.
