It's Florida 2000 in Mexico

The Mexicans held a presidential election yesterday and both sides have declared victory:

Two bitter rivals declared themselves winners of Mexico's extraordinarily close presidential race, even though official results wouldn't be ready for days, sparking cries of fraud from supporters and fears of violence.

The two candidates were separated by fewer than 401,000 votes, with more than 36 million counted in a preliminary tally by electoral officials. The conservative, Felipe Calderon had 36.6 percent to leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's 35.5 percent, according to results from 91.4 percent of polling places.

But the Federal Electoral Institute stressed those results weren't final - and said it wouldn't declare a victor until an official count due to start Wednesday.

In the meantime, both candidates declared victory, raising questions about their pledges to respect an electoral process in which Mexicans invested hundreds of millions of dollars to overcome decades of systematic fraud.

"We have no doubt that we have won the presidential election," Calderon told supporters.

"Smile: We've already won," Lopez Obrador told his. "We're going to defend our triumph. We aren't going to let them try to make our results disappear."

Thousands of Lopez Obrador's supporters had gathered in a steady rain in Mexico City's Zocalo plaza, chanting "Lie! Lie! Fraud! Fraud!" after the delay was announced.

Early Monday morning, Lopez Obrador's Web site showed an animated cartoon version of him climbing on an Olympic-style winner's podium and donning the red, white and green presidential sash. Calderon's Web site showed a photo of him in front of a large, applauding crowd, overlaid with a headline reading "Felipe Calderon, President of Mexico."

A drawn-out period of uncertainty could affect financial markets and unsettle Mexico's maturing democracy.

Let's send Jimmy Carter down there to monitor things, and maybe we can get some of those Florda election officials to go count chads. This could be very entertaining.