MEXICO: Mexico's top electoral court threw out leftists' allegations of massive fraud in last month's presidential election yesterday, almost certainly handing victory to conservative candidate Felipe Calderon.
The seven judges voted unanimously to reject most of the legal complaints by left-wing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who said he was robbed of victory in the July 2nd vote.
The judges, whose rulings are final and cannot be appealed, must declare a president-elect by September 6th.
Mr Lopez Obrador's supporters have paralysed Mexico City with protests this month and he has vowed to make the country ungovernable if the court declares Mr Calderon the winner of the most bitterly contested election in Mexico's modern history.
Mr Calderon said he would not be rattled by protests. "I will assume my role as president if that's what the court decides," he said during an event for businesswomen. "I won't let something that's been decided by all the citizens be undermined by a few in a violent way."
The initial result showed Mr Calderon, a former energy minister from the ruling National Action Party, won the election by 244,000 votes, or just 0.58 of a percentage point.
The judges fell short of formally naming Mr Calderon the winner but they said there were only marginal changes to the original results after recounts and annulments at the most fiercely contested polling stations. Leonel Castillo, president of the election tribunal, said Mr Lopez Obrador's claims of huge fraud "turned out to be completely unfounded".
The Mexican peso firmed 0.85 per cent to 10.88 per dollar as investors were convinced the pro-business conservative would now take over from President Vicente Fox on December 1st.
The election split Mexico between left and right and is the most serious challenge to its democracy since Mr Fox's election victory six years ago ended seven decades of one-party rule.
Mr Lopez Obrador says there were serious irregularities at more than half the polling stations.
He has demanded a full recount of all 41 million votes cast and has launched street protests that have shut down central Mexico City. Mr Calderon would be a US ally in a region to counterbalance the influence of leftists like Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, a foe of Washington.
If his victory is confirmed by the court, Mr Lopez Obrador says he will either lead a civil resistance movement against his rival or set up some kind of parallel government.
"The damned judges are corrupt. They are stealing the election from us," said Josefina Mondragon (55), a housewife who was one of a small group of protesters outside the court.
The court annulled results from scores of polling stations after a partial recount this month because of irregularities, but there was no sign of huge fraud, the judges said.
"We can tell people that today their votes were worth something and that they are definitive," said another judge, Fernando Ojesto, adding that the court would in coming days rule on the election's validity and give a final vote count.
Mr Lopez Obrador insists he won the election and that a court ruling in favour of Mr Calderon would merely complete the fraud. His supporters have been camping overnight in Mexico City's central Zocalo square for almost a month.
However, attendance at his rallies has dropped in the past two weeks and a campaign of blockading highways, government buildings and foreign banks appears to be losing steam.
The leftist, who has vowed to overhaul economic policies to put the poor first, insists he will not give up.