MEXICO CITY – Mexico issued multimillion-dollar fines for misconduct Tuesday to both sides in the bitterly disputed 2006 presidential elections.

The Federal Electoral Institute fined the leftist Democratic Revolution Party 57 million pesos (US$5.2 million) for blocking downtown Mexico City for two months after narrowly losing the vote, and for disrupting former President Vicente Fox's state-of-the-nation address around the same time.

It ordered the ruling National Action Party to pay 38 million pesos (US$3.5 million) because Fox illegally supported his party's candidate, current President Felipe Calderón. Mexico considers political endorsements from sitting presidents to be an unfair use of executive power.

Democratic Revolution set up tent cities along major downtown avenues after its candidate, Andres Manuel López Obrador, lost the election by less than a percentage point. López Obrador claims fraud, and still calls himself the “legitimate president” of Mexico.

His party vowed to appeal the fine.