Conservative Calderon Wins Mexico President Vote Count
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
MEXICO CITY (AP) – The ruling party’s Felipe Calderon won the official count in Mexico’s disputed presidential race Thursday, a come-from-behind victory for the stiff technocrat. But his leftist rival refused to concede and said he’d fight the results in court.
Calderon was already reaching out to other parties to build a “unity government,” while his rival, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, blamed fraud for his narrow loss in the vote count and called on his supporters to fill Mexico City’s main square Saturday in a show of force.
With all of the 41 million votes counted, Calderon of President Vicente Fox’s National Action Party had 35.88 percent to 35.31 percent for Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party. The two were separated by about 220,000 votes.
Roberto Madrazo, whose Institutional Revolutionary Party controlled Mexico for 71 years until Fox’s victory in 2000, had 22.27 percent, and two minor candidates split the rest.
