Mexican leftist to sue election body over ads

MEXICO CITY, July 26 (Reuters) The leftist candidate in Mexico's presidential election is taking the country's electoral institute to court in the next step of his quest to prove the vote was rigged, his party has said.

The federal electoral institute or IFE is the body in charge of running the election.

Aides of maverick leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said a criminal complaint would be lodged against the IFE's nine board members for letting private companies air pre-election TV ads in favor of conservative Felipe Calderon, who won the July 2 vote by a tiny margin.

The lawsuit would be presented to the attorney general's office later on Tuesday, they said.

''It will be up to the public prosecutor to decide what crime might have been committed. From our point of view there are a series of important omissions, like not stopping these ads,'' Horacio Duarte, the party's representative at the IFE, told a news conference.

Mexico has been in a political crisis since the contested July 2 election, which split the electorate down the middle.

The country's electoral court has until the end of next month to examine Lopez Obrador's claim that Calderon's win by 244,000 votes out of 41 million was rigged and decide whether he is justified in demanding a vote-by-vote recount.

Though European Union election observers reported no irregularities, the leftist says vote counts were manipulated at some 70,000 of the country's roughly 130,000 polling stations. He says that is grounds to count every vote again.

Calderon's party faithful are quietly confident the court will rule in their favor, but Lopez Obrador supporters are staging huge protest marches and planning civil disobedience actions in support of the anti-poverty crusader.

Lopez Obrador challenged Calderon on Monday to agree to a full recount that both would stand by. Calderon rejected the offer, saying the election was ''clean, free and democratic.'' The left's lawsuit will also target IFE President Luis Carlos Ugalde for having declared Calderon the winner at the end of the official vote count, when it is the electoral court that is supposed to announce the new president.

Ugalde and Calderon are close friends, and Calderon was best man at Ugalde's wedding -- something Lopez Obrador supporters have been drawing attention to in recent days.

Duarte said that if found guilty of misconduct, IFE officials could face up to six years in prison.

Reuters SK VP0435