MEXICO.- The Institutional Revolutionary Party's (PRI) candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, has won the Mexican elections today, according to temporary data made public by the electoral authorities, a virtual victory that the leftwing candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador has not recognized yet.
Just as the pre-election surveys predicted, the PRI's candidate has obtained a comfortable victory over his opponents and, starting next December 01, he will succeed Felipe Calderón as the President of Mexico.
According to a statistical sample from the Federal Institute of Elections (IFE in Spanish) with the data gathered from around 7,500 voting ballots and, still waiting for the final results, Peña Nieto received between 37.93% and 38.55% of the votes, according to the Institute's chairman Leonardo Valdés.
"I assume with enthusiasm, great commitment and full responsibility the Office that the Mexican people have entrusted me" expressed Peña Nieto in a speech to his followers who welcomed him with joyful shouts of "President".
Peña Nieto remarked the need of letting tensions and differences behind and to "favor and encourage national reconciliation".
"Beyond the tendencies or personal preferences there is something that unites us all, our love for Mexico" pointed Peña Nieto who reiterated that regarding organized crime there will be "neither pact nor truce".
Even when the IFE informed that the results revealed have but a 0.5% margin of error, the left wing candidate wouldn't admit Peña's virtual victory or his own defeat.
López Obrador stated that the presidential election's results made public up to this moment do not match his own (which he did not cited) and that he will wait until the final data is made public.
"The last word has not been said yet" declared López Obrador, leader of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD). "It is fundamental to gather all of the data ( ) we will wait until we have all the information" he added.
The leftist candidate, who did not recognize his defeat at the presidential elections in 2006 either, gave his address just seconds after the IFE indicated that he had lost the voting held on Sunday.
According to the electoral institute's data, the contender from the Mexican left wing received between 30.9% and 31.86% of the votes. The candidate for the currently ruling National Action Party (PAN) was in third place gaining between 25.10% and 26.03% of the votes.
The first to publicly accept her defeat was Vázquez Mota, who at the 20.30 hours, local time (01.30 GMT) admitted that the voting tendency reflected in some of the exit polls indicated that she had lost the elections.
In address to her supporters she declared that her party will be "vigilant" of the winner. "I will remain vigilant with the power millions of votes have given me to see that the structural reforms needed by the country crystallize and to impede the return of the authoritarianism, the empire of corruption, of impunity and the surrender before organized crime" she stated.
The IFE's president, in his message, pointed that there was over a 62% poll and said that more than 49 millions of people had voted. "The one casted today was the election that has received more votes in the history of Mexico" he added.
On another note, sources from the IFE indicated that over a thousand randomly selected citizens performed the analysis and counting of the received votes on 40,737 mailing envelopes sent by Mexican voters from 91 countries, 72% from the United States.
The President of the IFE's Temporary Commission for the Vote of Mexican Residents Abroad, Francisco Guerrero, stated that 59,044 Mexicans were entitled to vote in this manner, which means that approximately 69% of them exercised their right.
Also, the number of envelopes received was 23% higher than the one registered on the federal elections of 2006 when the Mexican citizens living abroad were first able to exercise their right to vote for the Republic's president, stated the sources.
Around 79.5 millions of Mexicans were called to the polls yesterday to elect a new president as well as the totality of 500 representatives and 128 senators that will make up the Congress and also 925 mayors, six state governors and the Head of State for the Federal District.
editorial@sandiegored.com
Original Text : EFE Agency
Translation : Karen B.
