On Monday as Felipe Calderon, 43, of President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, had claimed victory with a 380,000-vote advantage, his leftist rival vowed to scrutinize every last ballot against the possibility of fraud.

In a tight presidential race in Mexico Sunday, voters were bitterly divided among three main candidates.

Mexico's presidential election was too close to call and results will not be announced at least until Wednesday, the electoral authorities said.

But two front-runners of the three have both claimed victory in the vote.

According to electoral officials, a preliminary count gave the conservative Calderon an edge of 1 percentage point over Mexico City's former mayor.

With 97.98 percent of polling stations reporting, Calderon had 36.37 percent and Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolutionary Party had 35.37 percent.

Roberto Madrazo,the Institutional Revolution Party (PRI) was a distant third with 21.55 percent, and minor candidates and write-ins accounted for the rest.

Calderon said he clearly had won and vowed to build a conciliatory government to mend rifts heightened by the angry campaign in which nearly two-thirds of the 37 million voters chose other candidates.

"It is time to put our divisions behind us," he said.

But Lopez Obrador refused to declare a winner until an official count begins on Wednesday. 

(Xinhua News Agency via foreign agencies, July 4, 2006)