Mexico in election cliffhanger

By Kieran Murray and Alistair Bell

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A fiery leftist promising a war on
poverty and a Harvard-educated conservative both claimed
victory in Mexico’s presidential election on Sunday, raising
fears a contested result could plunge the country into chaos.

While the top election official said it was too close to
call, left-wing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said his
party’s exit polls showed he won by 500,000 votes and demanded
that the result be respected.

But his rival, Felipe Calderon of the ruling National
Action Party, immediately shot back by saying independent exit
polls showed him ahead and he had “no doubt” he won the race.

Luis Carlos Ugalde, the country’s top election official,
said it was impossible to separate the leading candidates and
there would be no result until at least Wednesday.

“The gap between the first and second place is very narrow,
so it is not possible to announce the winning candidate,”
Ugalde said in a national televised address.

Exit polls also said it was a neck and neck race between
Calderon and Lopez Obrador.

The specter of the two sides claiming victory and calling
street protests hangs over Mexico’s young democracy, key to
U.S. interests in border security, immigration and drug
smuggling.

Supporters of both candidates were already declaring
victory and began loud street celebrations.

Leftist supporters shouted “We did it!” and “Let’s go and
celebrate,” in Mexico City’s vast central square and the lobby
of a hotel where Lopez Obrador was stationed.

At Calderon’s headquarters, the mood was also upbeat after
early vote returns showed him with a lead.

A fight similar to the one that erupted after the U.S.
presidential election in 2000 would spook Mexico’s financial
markets, which are already nervous about Lopez Obrador’s
economic policies.

Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party,
which ruled Mexico for 71 years before it was toppled at the
last presidential election in 2000 trailed in third place, the
exit polls said.

FIGHT POVERTY

Lopez Obrador, 52, won voter support with promises to end
two decades of free-market reforms and pull millions out of
poverty with welfare benefits and new jobs in ambitious
infrastructure projects.

“Lopez Obrador is the only one who can bring a new Mexican
revolution where the poor are the ones who win,” said Amalia
Rodriguez, a 19-year-old student in Mexico City.

Lopez Obrador was the red-hot favorite for most of the
campaign but Calderon, a former energy minister, closed the gap
with aggressive TV ads painting his rival as a danger to
Mexico’s economic stability and linking him to Venezuela’s
anti-U.S. firebrand President Hugo Chavez.

It was a strategy that worked with many voters.

“Lopez Obrador is not a danger to Mexico; he’s the enemy of
Mexico,” said Carolina Ocampo, a 34-year-old sunglasses
saleswoman as after voting in Mexico City.

Calderon, 43, a stiff Harvard-educated lawyer and
economist, has promised to create millions of jobs with
pro-business reforms, more foreign investment and a boom in
construction and housebuilding.

He also vows to clamp down on violent criminals, from
kidnappers to drug smugglers who have killed around 1,000
people in vicious turf wars so far this year.

President Vicente Fox took office after that historic
victory pledging fast and far-reaching reforms. Hopes ran high
but Fox failed to deliver on his promises of rapid economic
growth and millions of new jobs, and opposition parties in
Congress blocked his economic reform program.

He is barred under Mexico’s constitution from seeking
reelection.

An exit poll showed Calderon’s PAN party winning 35 percent
of the vote for elections in the lower house of Congress, four
points ahead of Lopez Obrador’s party. The next president,
whoever he may be, is unlikely to dominate Congress.