MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Mexico poll 'too close to call'

Mexico's presidential election was too close to call Sunday, with voters bitterly divided between a leftist offering himself as a savior to the poor and a conservative warning that his rival's free-spending proposals threaten the economy.

Electoral officials said they could not release the results of Sunday night's quick count of the votes, which they previously said would happen only if the leading candidates were within one percentage point of each other. Luis Carlos Ugalde, president of the Federal Electoral Institute, said an official count would begin Wednesday, and a winner will be declared once it's complete.

Felipe Calderon, 43, of outgoing President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, had been running an exceedingly close race with Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, 52, of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party. The Institutional Revolutionary Party's Roberto Madrazo, 53, had been trailing in third place.

Fox appealed for calm amid fears that a close result would raise the potential for violence. Some Lopez Obrador supporters have warned they won't accept his defeat if they think fraud might be involved.

The vote was the first since Fox's stunning victory six years ago ended 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and it could determine whether Mexico becomes the latest Latin American country to move to the left.

Electoral officials said voting was relatively peaceful, although many voters complained polls opened late or ran out of ballots.

Luis Carlos Ugalde, president of Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute, said only eight of more than 130,488 polling stations failed to open - the fewest in Mexico's history.

"We've had an exemplary election day, of which all Mexicans can be proud," Ugalde said.

Exit polls indicated National Action Party did well in three governor's races - Morelos, Guanajuato and Jalisco - while Marcelo Ebrard of Lopez Obrador's party easily won the Mexico City mayor's post.

As for Congress - key to determining whether the next president will be able to push through reforms - none of the parties dominated. Two exit polls, both with a 1.5 percent margin of error, gave National Action 35 percent, Democratic Revolution 31 percent and the PRI 28 percent of the lower house of Congress.

In the past, Lopez Obrador has not hesitated to mobilize millions to get his way. As Mexico City mayor, he successfully persuaded the Fox administration to drop charges against him by staging massive protests, and he refused to accept his loss to Madrazo in a 1994 gubernatorial race.

A drawn-out period of uncertainty could rock financial markets and unsettle Mexico's maturing democracy.