On Monday as Felipe Calderon, 43, of President Vicente Fox's
National Action Party, had claimed victory with a 380,000-vote
advantage, his leftist rival vowed to scrutinize every last ballot
against the possibility of fraud.
In a tight presidential race in Mexico Sunday, voters were
bitterly divided among three main candidates.
Mexico's presidential election was too close to call and results
will not be announced at least until Wednesday, the electoral
authorities said.
But two front-runners of the three have both claimed victory in
the vote.
According to electoral officials, a preliminary count gave the
conservative Calderon an edge of 1 percentage point over Mexico
City's former mayor.
With 97.98 percent of polling stations reporting, Calderon had
36.37 percent and Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolutionary
Party had 35.37 percent.
Roberto Madrazo,the Institutional Revolution Party (PRI) was a
distant third with 21.55 percent, and minor candidates and
write-ins accounted for the rest.
Calderon said he clearly had won and vowed to build a
conciliatory government to mend rifts heightened by the angry
campaign in which nearly two-thirds of the 37 million voters chose
other candidates.
"It is time to put our divisions behind us," he said.
But Lopez Obrador refused to declare a winner until an official
count begins on Wednesday.?
(Xinhua News Agency via foreign agencies, July 4, 2006)
