Mexico Vote Tally Gives Free-Trader A Narrow Victory

Felipe Calderón, whose margin of victory in the presidential election was about 200,000 votes, celebrates with supporters in Mexico City. (By Dario Lopez-mills -- Associated Press)

López Obrador's decision to call his supporters into the streets on Saturday had been long anticipated and feared by some because his most impassioned supporters have predicted violence. But López Obrador said Thursday that he would use Saturday's rally solely to lay out his case for a recount, and his aides have said any demonstration will be peaceful.

"If the court and the election institute don't back López Obrador's victory, I'll be the first to say we need a revolution," Elio Luna, the owner of a small nursery, said outside López Obrador's campaign headquarters.

Calderón built his campaign on promises that he would continue the pro-business policies of outgoing President Vicente Fox that have made Fox a favorite of President Bush's administration. He stressed his commitment to free trade, countering the position of López Obrador, who said he would not honor pledges under the North American Free Trade Agreement to lower tariffs on U.S. corn and beans.

Financial markets have seemed to prefer a Calderón victory, driving down prices of Mexican bonds when López Obrador was up in the polls and sending prices back up after Calderón finished first in the preliminary count.

The announcement of Calderón's victory capped five days of seesaw anxiety that began with the largest turnout of voters in Mexican history. López Obrador declared victory on national television just before midnight on Sunday. Within minutes, Calderón made his own televised appearance to do exactly the same.

The dueling announcements set off a crisis that has tested Mexico's transition to a genuine multiparty democracy six years after the end of one-party rule.

Calderón led by one percentage point after preliminary counts. But on Wednesday, Mexico's electoral commission began an official count of tally sheets attached to sealed packets of votes from all 130,000 polling places in the country. López Obrador called for a vote-by-vote count, but Luis Carlos Ugalde, head of the electoral commission, said it was against the law to open any package unless its tally sheet appeared to be altered or damaged.

The early results set off delirium in López Obrador's camp. He clung to a lead of one or two percentage points throughout the afternoon Wednesday and into Thursday. The counting continued in what a Mexico City daily newspaper, El Universal, dubbed "The Night Mexico Did Not Sleep."

On Thursday, in the Colonia Caracol neighborhood behind Mexico City's soccer stadium, teams of vote counters battled each other under bare fluorescent lights in one of the country's 300 counting centers. Their final results helped explain why López Obrador's standing had been improving: The populist candidate's total jumped from 110,685 during the preliminary count to 118,246 after the official count, which came after 70 suspicious packets were opened and their ballots counted.

"They added wrong," said Gabino Camacho, López Obrador's bleary-eyed representative in District E-F-23.

But there were not enough districts like Camacho's to swing the election in López Obrador's favor. After all the counting, Calderón's victory margin had declined by only 21,000 votes.

Hours before Camacho finished his cross-checking, Calderón had already pulled ahead, taking a lead he would not give up. At 4 a.m. Thursday, when Calderón moved ahead of López Obrador for the first time in 20 hours, dozens of his supporters let out a cheer outside his National Action Party headquarters.

Calderón thrust his right hand in the air in a sign of victory. His followers were rumpled, but he emerged looking fresh in a pressed shirt and knotted tie.