MEXICO CITY: Enrique Pena Nieto on Tuesday fiercely defended his victory in Mexico's presidential election, amid calls for an investigation into vote buying allegations.
Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party won the July 1 ballot by a solid margin, according to official results, but left-wing runner-up Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador claims the PRI "bought" five million votes.
In his first meeting with Mexican reporters since the election, Pena Nieto branded this charge "a lie, an unsubstantiated claim, with no proof."
The victor dismissed charges that his votes had been bought in exchange for department store gift cards as "nothing more than a show... that has not been proven because there is simply no proof."
Incumbent leader President Felipe Calderon, who initially congratulated Pena Nieto on his victory on July 1, on Monday said the alleged vote buying was "unacceptable" and something that "had to be immediately corrected."
Calderon's conservative National Action Party (PAN) agreed late on Monday to formally request that electoral officials probe the claims.
"We recognize the official results published up to now," said PAN leader Gustavo Madero, "but there is important evidence of severe inequality and of grave faults."
Madero alleged that there is evidence the PRI broke campaign finance spending limits, used off-the-books financing and directly bought votes.
Pena Nieto won the election with 38 percent of the vote, followed by Lopez Obrador from the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) with 31 percent and the PAN's Josefina Vazquez Mota with 25 percent.
Lopez Obrador said Monday he was gathering evidence to ask vote officials to declare the presidential election invalid, claiming the PRI bought five million ballots. Pena Nieto obtained 3.3 million more votes than Lopez Obrador.
Madero however made it clear that the PAN will not join the leftist's legal case and will not ask for the results to be invalidated. Breaking campaign spending limits and vote buying are punishable by fines.
The PRI was once all but synonymous with the Mexican state, governing for seven decades until 2000 using a mixture of patronage, repression, rigged elections and bribery.
Pena Nieto, who declared victory late Sunday, inherits a country beset by a brutal drug war and an economy struggling to create jobs, and has promised to create work through public works contracts.
The 45-year-old has moved quickly to try to allay fears that the corrupt practices of the once authoritarian PRI could make a comeback.
"We are a new generation. We are not returning to the past. My government has its sights set on the future," he told foreign reporters after his election.
Outgoing leader Calderon's military crackdown has turned parts of the country into war zones and despite presiding over a period of steady economic growth, he leaves as an unpopular president with a dubious legacy.
The economy grew under Calderon, but so did poverty: 47 percent of 112 million Mexicans are poor, according to government figures.
Mexico is nevertheless Latin America's second biggest economy and is closely tied to those of the United States and Canada through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Mexico's Electoral Tribunal will accept challenges to the vote until Thursday, and has until September 6 to issue a verdict.
Lopez Obrador came in second in the 2006 presidential election, losing by less than one percentage point. He then led protests that virtually paralyzed Mexico City for more than a month, claiming fraud.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through Mexico City on Saturday protesting Pena Nieto's victory.
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