MEXICO CITY, July 2 — Mexican presidential candidate Ricardo Anaya accepted his election defeat this morning by anti-establishment leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, joining the frontrunner’s other main rival in congratulating him on his win.

Lopez Obrador has won the vote by a large margin, according to exit polls, in a shift to the left for Latin America’s second-largest economy and a major break with the two parties that have governed Mexico for nearly a century, the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and conservative National Action Party (PAN).

Anaya, who ran for a PAN-led coalition, said he had called Lopez Obrador to concede. "I recognize his victory and express my congratulations, and I wish him the greatest of success, for the good of Mexico,” he told supporters. — AFP