Mexican Elections

The preliminary results indicate Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party has won Mexico's presidential election by an extremely narrow margin. However, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD) said there had been inconsistencies in the voting returns.

Mexico is on edge after the tightest of presidential outcomes. At 11:00 pm on Sunday July 2, Luis Carlos Ugalde –president of the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE)– reported the race too close to call and asked the candidates not to claim victory. Minutes later, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) proclaimed himself the winner by 500,000 votes. Shortly thereafter, Felipe Calderón of the National Action Party (PAN) also claimed the mantle of victory, citing quick counts and preliminary results (PREP) which gave him a scarce one-point advantage over AMLO. Soon thereafter, the PAN’s margin fell to 0.6 when IFE included in the PREP some 2.6 million ballots with “inconsistencies,” which López Obrador had denounced as “disappeared.” On July 5, all 300 district councils –the regional electoral districts– started reviewing the tally sheets attached to130,488 boxes (paquetes electorales) containing the ballots of nearly 42 million Mexicans.