Mexican conservative wins election battle

Hundreds of supporters celebrated Calderon's win with champagne and tequila. Picture / Reuters

MEXICO CITY - Final results show conservative presidential candidate Felipe Calderon has won a narrow victory in an election that divided Mexico, but his leftist rival has vowed to fight the result in the courts and on the streets.

The Harvard-educated Calderon was elected with 35.88 per cent of the vote and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a combative left-wing former Mexico City mayor, trailed close behind on 35.31 per cent, final official results showed.

Lopez Obrador angrily claimed the election last Sunday was plagued with irregularities and pledged to fight it in Mexico's electoral tribunal.

He also called a rally of supporters in Mexico City's vast central square for Saturday, raising fears of street protests and further unrest as well as weeks of legal wrangling similar to that which followed the US presidential election in 2000.

"We cannot recognise or accept these results," he said.

A relaxed Calderon led supporters in a noisy party at his ruling National Action Party's offices and immediately called on his adversaries to forget an ugly and fiercely contested election that has plunged Mexico into a political crisis.

"If the contest is behind us, our differences are behind us. Now is the hour for unity and agreements between Mexicans," said Calderon, a pro-US former energy minister.

Calderon, 43, would be an ally of the United States in Latin America, where leftists have taken power in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela and turned away from Washington.

At home, Calderon promises to clamp down on violent criminals and powerful drug trafficking gangs as well as create millions of jobs with pro-business reforms, more foreign investment and a boom in construction.

He was the clear favourite of investors and Mexico's financial markets jumped on news of his victory. The stock market was up 2.7 per cent in afternoon trade and the peso currency gained 1.6 per cent.

Lopez Obrador had led the recount for hours but Calderon overtook him in the early hours of Thursday local time as the last votes came in from his strongholds in northern and western Mexico.

Hundreds of supporters, many of them young professionals dressed in suits or fashionable jeans, packed into Calderon's party offices to toast his win with champagne and tequila.

The narrow victory margin and months of animosity between left and right have many fearing weeks of legal battles and massive street protests ahead.

Lopez Obrador was the red-hot favourite for most of the campaign, but Calderon closed the gap by painting his rival as a danger to Mexico's economic stability and linking him to anti-US firebrand Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

When Calderon was judged to have won a preliminary count earlier this week, Lopez Obrador cried foul and protests broke out in the capital.

Lopez Obrador pledged to help Mexico's poor with welfare benefits and ambitious infrastructure projects to create jobs.

He won wide support in Mexico City but his spending policies worried investors, business leaders and many middle-class families. He also failed to make major inroads in traditionally conservative northern Mexico.

- REUTERS