MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico's highest electoral authority declared Friday that Enrique Pena Nieto was the legitimate winner of the country's July 1 presidential election, formally opening the transition to a new government despite continuing claims of fraud by the second-place candidate of the left.

The Federal Electoral Tribunal said leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had failed to prove claims that vote-buying had affected the results of the vote returning Mexico's former autocratic ruling party to the country's highest office after a 12-year absence.

Lopez Obrador told reporters Friday morning that he refused to recognize the results of the election and was calling for a peaceful protest that he described as "civil disobedience" on Sept. 9 in the Zocalo, the historic plaza in the heart of downtown Mexico City. He launched street demonstrations that paralyzed central Mexico City after he lost the 2006 vote, but widespread protests appear far less likely this time.

Lopez Obrador said the electoral tribunal made an illegitimate ruling Thursday evening when it rejected the leftist's allegations of vote-buying and other campaign violations in favor of Pena Nieto, the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. The seven electoral magistrates are nominated by Mexico's Supreme Court and confirmed by Congress and are widely seen as credible and non-partisan, although Lopez Obrador has alleged that several members were based in favor of the PRI.







Pena Nieto was expected to formally accept the status of president-elect within hours, officially beginning the country's transition to an administration that has promised to focus on fiscal reform, infrastructure improvements and a new emphasis on preventing violence from affecting ordinary Mexicans as a result of the country's six-year militarized offensive against drug cartels.





The PRI said in a statement Friday morning that the ruling "has ended the contentious and combative phase of the federal electoral process and has fully demonstrated the legitimacy of Enrique Pena Nieto's victory at the ballot box."



"The evidence absolutely didn't support annulling an election with a difference of three million votes between first and second place," said Jose Antonio Crespo, an analyst at the Center for Economic Studies. "The left wants to be able to annul an election because of any irregularity. Rather, they want to where they lost, because in Mexico City and the legislature, where they did well, they don't want to, and it was the same election."



Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson contributed to this report.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.