Hundreds of students take to the streets of Mexico City after election officials confirmed that Enrique Pena Nieto won the country's hotly-contested presidential election.

The protesters are accusing Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party of election fraud.

Reports that Pena Nieto's party paid leading broadcasters in the country to make favourable comments about him in the lead-up to the election sharpened criticism against the front-runner.

There were also accounts of vote buying and illegitimate vote counting in polling stations.

Led by Mexico's "Yo Soy 132" student movement, which some analysts have dubbed "The Mexican Spring," the students march, denouncing the national vote as a fraud.

(SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PROTESTER, MONICA ALAVON, SAYING:

"I think that today the people have gone out because they are dissatisfied, they feel powerless because we feel there was a fraud committed against us. We feel that our country was sold out and a future was not decided by us or it was chosen by us by them"

45-year-old Pena Nieto will take office in December for a six-year term as president, restoring the party to power that dominated Mexican politics for most of the past century, at times ruthlessly.

Sarah Sheffer, Reuters