MEXICO CITY - Mexico's conservative presidential candidate, Felipe Calderon, snatched a razor-thin election victory Thursday, but his leftist rival vowed to fight the result in the courts and on the streets.
A Harvard-educated conservative, Calderon had 35.83 percent support with results in from 99.6 percent of polling stations. Although he was less than 0.5 points ahead of Lopez Obrador, his lead was insurmountable.
A relaxed Calderon led supporters in a noisy party at the ruling National Action Party 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-U.S. former energy minister.
Leftist former Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador angrily insisted he won the election, claimed it was plagued with irregularities and pledged to fight the result in Mexico's electoral tribunal.
He called a rally of supporters in Mexico City's vast central square on Saturday, raising fears of street protests and further unrest as well as weeks of legal wrangling like that which followed the U.S. election in 2000.
"We cannot recognize or accept these results," he said.
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.
Tequila and Champagne
Hundreds of supporters, many of them young professionals dressed in suits or fashionable jeans, packed into his party offices on Thursday to toast his win with champagne and tequila.
Mexico's stock market jumped 3.5 percent and the peso currency climbed 1.3 percent on news of Calderon's lead.
They had both slumped on Wednesday when it seemed possible that Lopez Obrador, an austere anti-poverty campaigner, might win the election.
He led the recount for hours but Calderon overtook him overnight as the last votes came in from his strongholds in northern and western Mexico.
Election officials said they would only declare a winner when the recount was completed later on Thursday.
His lead was around 200,000 votes, a tiny advantage in a nation of over 100 million people.
The narrow victory margin and months of animosity between left and right have many fearing weeks of legal battles and massive street protests ahead.
"If a revolution is needed, a revolution there will be," said Guadalupe Tellez, a 53-year-old Lopez Obrador supporter who wept outside the leftist's modest Mexico City apartment Thursday, trying to keep track of the vote recount. "He is the only person who wanted to help the people."
Lopez Obrador was the red-hot favorite 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-U.S. 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.
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