SANTIAGO: After a heated recount of last month's mayoral election results in Chile, an electoral tribunal has determined that Maya Fernandez Allende, the granddaughter of former president Salvador Allende, did not win the seat for the district of Nunoa as originally announced.

The reversal, which has reignited decades-old enmities, came with an announcement on Tuesday that the incumbent mayor, Pedro Sabat, was the winner by 30 votes out of an estimated 68,000 cast in the middle-class neighbourhood of Santiago. In the original vote count, Fernandez Allende was credited with a 20-vote victory that appeared to have ended Sabat's 16 years in the post.

Leaders of the Socialist party, of which Fernandez Allende is an official candidate, have stated they will appeal to a higher electoral body over the ruling, but few political observers in Chile believe there will be any further change in the election results.

Controversy erupted within days of the results as Fernandez Allende's slim victory did not include two polling centres which showed minor discrepancies between the number of voters who turned up and the number of votes actually cast.

By arrangement with the Guardian