Mexico elections: Vote recount ordered after Lopez Obrador cries foul

GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Mexico’s election watchdog has ordered a recount of more than half of the votes cast in the presidential ballot after the runner-up cried foul, Mexican newspapers reported today.

Preliminary counting after Sunday’s poll showed Enrique Peña Nieto of the center-left Institutional Revolutionary Party had won about 38 percent of the vote, putting him well ahead of his two main rivals: left-winger Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who received nearly 32 percent support and Josefina Vazquez Mota of sitting President Felipe Calderon’s National Action Party, who got about 25  percent.

Lopez Obrador, who has refused to concede defeat, on Tuesday demanded a full recount of the poll, which he claims was “plagued by irregularities.”

The silver-haired presidential candidate for the Party of the Democratic Revolution lost the 2006 election by a razor-thin margin amid allegations of corruption and vote buying. 

The independent Federal Electoral Institute announced today it had agreed to recount 54.5 percent of the votes for president and more than 60 percent of the votes for members of congress and the senate, El Universal said.

Executive secretary Edmundo Jacobo Molina told reporters 1,200 working groups across the country would be responsible for recounting the votes, La Reforma reported.

Notimex said more than 78,000 packets containing votes for the presidential candidates and about 86,000 packets of votes for deputies and senators would be opened and recounted.

More from GlobalPost: Mexico 2012 elections coverage