MEXICO CITY – Supporters of ruling party candidate Felipe Calderón finally got to celebrate his presidential win Tuesday after Mexico's top electoral court ended two months of suspense and validated the July 2 election amid angry opposition protests.

"I feel very good," Mr. Calderón told reporters after watching the proceedings of Mexico's Federal Electoral Tribunal on TV at his campaign headquarters.

AP

Mexican president-elect Felipe Calderon, with his wife, Margarita Zavala, greeted supporters outside his campaign headquarters on Tuesday.

The tribunal confirmed Mr. Calderón's razor-thin, 0.56 percent victory after it mostly discounted hundreds of fraud complaints by leftist challenger and former Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

At a rally Tuesday night before supporters in the downtown Zócalo plaza where he lives in a protest camp, Mr. López Obrador vowed to continue his fight.

"I express my decision to reject the ruling of the tribunal," he said, "and I don't recognize he who pretends to present himself as head of the executive branch."

The election crisis and weeks of escalating protests have riveted the nation and called into question its young democracy, although opinion surveys show that most voters believe that Mr. Calderón and his National Action Party, or PAN, won the race.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza echoed that sentiment Tuesday. "In the past two months, Mexico's political institutions have been tested – but it is clear that democracy has emerged triumphant," Mr. Garza said in a statement.

President Vicente Fox, during a trip to Cancún, congratulated Mr. Calderón and wished for him "the best of the best for your term before this great collective force of Mexicans."

Despite Mr. López Obrador's shifting allegations of cybernetic fraud, ballot-box stuffing and forged precinct tally sheets, the seven-member tribunal said little evidence was presented to justify annulment of the election.

"The people voted freely, which leads me to the conclusion that the election for president of the republic has the necessary elements to be declared valid," said magistrate Fernando Ojesto Martínez, one of the judges who voted unanimously to certify the results.

Hundreds of López Obrador followers gathered outside the tribunal's headquarters in southern Mexico City. Mr. López Obrador was the candidate of a three-party coalition led by his Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD.

Some protesters cried as judge after judge declared election irregularities minor and not determinate in the outcome of the election. The panel's decision, rendered in a 300-page document, cannot be appealed.

"There are no perfect elections, and that's a reality we need to start from," magistrate Alfonsina Berta Navarro Hidalgo said. "To think otherwise would be utopian."

After all seven judges had voted, López Obrador supporters exploded in anger, throwing eggs and soft drinks at the tribunal building and shouting "fraud, fraud, fraud" and, "Obrador, presidente."

Others tried to throw a coffin over the tribunal fence to symbolize what they called the death of democracy. One woman stripped off her clothes.

As television helicopters swirled overhead, hundreds of riot police initially stood by to avoid a confrontation with protesters. The seven judges had spent the night at the tribunal building to avoid being blocked from entering the court Tuesday morning.

The final vote count in the race, after a recount of 9 percent of the ballots, left Mr. Calderón with a lead of about 234,000 votes out of 41.5 million cast, or about half a percentage point. His original lead two months ago was 244,000 votes.

Both candidates garnered about 35 percent of voters in the five-way race. A new Congress also was elected.

The 10,000-ballot gain by Mr. López Obrador came as a result of both the partial recount and the annulment of some ballot boxes due to mathematical errors, misconduct by poll representatives or other irregularities, the tribunal said.

Mr. López Obrador had publicly pressured the court for a recount of all the votes cast in the election but did not formally challenge all 130,000 ballot boxes, making such a recount impossible, the court ruled last month.

He had anticipated the unfavorable ruling weeks ago and has vowed to create a parallel government and carry out acts of civil disobedience during the six-year presidential term. His supporters set up protest camps throughout downtown Mexico City more than a month ago.

Guillermina Medina, a 40-year-old homemaker who protested outside the tribunal, cried as she clutched vertical metal bars separating her from the court grounds.

"Fox is a traitor to democracy, and these crooks are imposing a puppet against the will of the people," she said before the tribunal's ruling.

While the tribunal's ruling was a political victory for Mr. Fox, the court also rapped him on the knuckles for indirect attacks against Mr. López Obrador during his official speeches.

Mexico's electoral laws strictly limit the involvement of elected officials and big business in the presidential campaign.

However, the PRD did not offer proof to show those ads had any effect on voters, the magistrates concluded.

The tribunal also said that Mr. López Obrador's failure to attend the first presidential debate might have played a role in his loss.

And it said that his claims of a dirty campaign against him were balanced by his use of similar tactics.

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