Mexico conservative claims tight election win

By Kieran Murray 54 minutes ago

Mexico's conservative presidential candidate Felipe Calderon declared victory on Monday in a bitterly contested election result as official returns showed him ahead of his left-wing rival.

Calderon said his lead was now "irreversible" because he had an advantage of more than 400,000 votes over Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist former mayor of Mexico City, with almost 95 percent of votes counted.

"There is an irreversible result and it is in my favor," Calderon said in a television interview, looking confident. "The result give me a very clear victory that cannot be reversed."

Lopez Obrador, who had insisted on Sunday night he won the election by 500,000 votes, appeared more open to a possible defeat on Monday morning.

"If in the count we conduct, it turns out that the final result does not favor us, I am going to abide by the result," he said.

The results and Lopez Obrador's softer tone appeared to reduce the risk of a major political crisis, and Mexico's peso currency jumped in early trade.