Pena Nieto wins Mexico president election: partial results

MEXICO CITY: Enrique Pena Nieto, the new face of the party that governed Mexico for seven decades, had a commanding lead in Sunday's presidential election, according to first official results by the electoral office.

Pena Nieto, candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), had 38 percent of the vote against 31-32 percent for his nearest rival, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador from the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), according to the early count by the independent Federal Electoral Institute (IFE).

"More votes were cast in this election than in any other election in Mexico's history," IFE president Leondardo Valdes said has he announced the results.

He said the results, based on returns from 7,500 polling stations, have a 0.5 percent margin of error.

Immediately after the announcement Lopez Obrador gave a brief speech in which he did not concede.

"We are going to wait until we have definitive results," he said. "We are not going to act in an irresponsible way. At the right time we will inform the people of Mexico."

In 2006, when Lopez Obrador ran for president and lost by less than one percent, he organized protests that paralyzed Mexico City for more than a month, then swore in as the "legitimate" president and even appointed a cabinet.