Mexicans protest against Peña Nieto's election win | World news | The Guardian Mexico Mexicans protest against Peña Nieto's election win Tens of thousands of people march in Mexico City amid allegations that PRI vote-buying influenced millions of votes Mexicans in Guadalajara protest against Enrique Peña Nieto’s election win amid claims his PRI party bought votes and paid TV networks for support. Photograph: Ulises Ruiz Basurto/EPA Agencies in Mexico City Sunday 8 July 2012 05.34 EDT First published on Sunday 8 July 2012 05.34 EDT Close This article is 4 years old Tens of thousands of protesters marched in Mexico City on Saturday to protest against Enrique Peña Nieto's apparent win in the country's presidential election, accusing his party of buying votes and paying TV networks for support. Demonstrators were angered by allegations that Peña Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI) gave out groceries, pre-paid gift cards and other goods to voters before the national elections on 1 July.

Students, unionists and leftists in Mexico City carried signs reading: "Peña, how much did it cost to become president?" and "Mexico, you pawned your future for 500 pesos." Officials estimated about 50,000 demonstrators gathered at the central Zocalo plaza. "The fraud was carried out before (the election), buying votes, tricking the people," said Gabriel Petatan Garcia, a geography student who carried a sign in Finnish. Protesters also carried signs in English, Japanese, French, German and other languages to call the attention of the international press. "The PRI threatens many people and buys others with a couple of tacos," said Manuel Ocegueda, a 43-year-old shop worker at the rally. Peña Nieto, a youthful 45-year-old married to a soap star , won last Sunday's election by 6.6 percentage points, according to the official count, bringing the PRI back to power after 12 years in opposition. The party had ruled Mexico for 71 consecutive years, with what critics say was the help of corruption, patronage and vote fraud. PRI officials deny buying votes and say the elections were free and fair.

The final count had Peña Nieto with 38.21% support, leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Democratic Revolution party with 31.59%, and Josefina Vazquez Mota of the conservative National Action party with 25.41%. The small New Alliance Party got 2.29%. The final count will be certified in September by the Federal Electoral Tribunal. The tribunal has declined to overturn previously contested elections, including a 2006 presidential vote that was far closer than last Sunday's. In the weeks before the latest polls a student-led movement, Soy132, mobilised demonstrations and online protests against his links to the media giant Televisa, saying that both manipulate public opinion and state institutions in malign synergy. A series of articles in the Guardian added to the controversy by publishing evidence that Televisa paved his path to the presidency by smearing rivals and disguising pro-Peña Nieto propaganda as news . Televisa has denied the allegations. Accusations of vote-buying began surfacing in June, but sharpened later when people rushed to grocery stores on the outskirts of Mexico City to redeem pre-paid gift cards worth about 100 pesos (£4.50).

Many said they got the cards from PRI supporters before the elections. López Obrador said millions of voters had received either pre-paid cards, cash, groceries, construction materials or appliances. Some demonstrators covered the heads of statues with plastic shopping bags from Soriana, the supermarket chain where the gift cards were redeemable. "We have to come out in the streets to denounce that the PRI bought votes, and there were people who sold them," said a 32-year-old psychologist, Raquel Ruiz. Some protesters said overturning the election result would be difficult, while others thought there were judicial means to prevent Peña Nieto from assuming the presidency. López Obrador said he would file a formal legal challenge to the vote count in electoral courts based on the allegation that PRI vote-buying influenced millions of votes. Simply giving away such gifts is not illegal under Mexican electoral law, as long as the expense is reported to electoral authorities. Giving gifts to influence votes is a crime, though it is not generally viewed as grounds for overturning an election. Leonardo Valdés, the president of the Federal Electoral Institute, said he did not see any grounds for overturning the results but that an investigation into the gift cards had been launched.

The PRI spokesman, Eduardo Sánchez, said last week the gift-card event had been "a theatrical representation" mounted by the left. He claimed supporters of López Obrador took hundreds of people to the shops, dressed them in PRI T-shirts, gave them gift cards, emptied shelves to create an appearance of panic buying, and brought TV cameras in to give the false impression that the PRI had given out the cards. Cesar Yanez, the spokesman for López Obrador's campaign, denied the PRI accusations. • This article was amended on 10 July 2012 to make clear the photograph is of protesters in the city of Guadalajara. Enrique Peña Nieto Takes Office as Mexico’s President - The New York Times The New York Times Americas |New President of Mexico Vows to Focus on Economy Search By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and KARLA ZABLUDOVSKY DEC. 1, 2012 Continue reading the main story Photo Enrique Peña Nieto, center, meeting with lawmakers at the national palace of Mexico on Saturday.

Credit Josh Haner/The New York Times MEXICO CITY — With protests and little pomp, Enrique Peña Nieto on Saturday began his six-year term as president of Mexico , promising big spending and sweeping changes to bring peace and prosperity to a country troubled by drug violence and uneven economic growth. “This is Mexico’s moment,” Mr. Peña Nieto declared in his inaugural address before a gathering of domestic and foreign leaders at the national palace, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., seated in the front row, while demonstrators kept far from the scene vandalized buildings and clashed with riot police officers outside. Mr. Peña Nieto, 46, a lawyer who had been governor of Mexico State, has pledged to work closely with the United States to strengthen security and economic ties, which he believes would bring Mexico closer to a middle-class society and reduce the kind of drug war violence that has left tens of thousands dead in the past several years. He made no promise to dismantle the drug-trafficking organizations, a focus of his immediate predecessor, Felipe Calderón .

Instead, he unveiled a sweeping 13-point agenda focused more on domestic goals for crime prevention that would revise the penal code to attack impunity, give more attention to victims of violence, lessen poverty and hunger, improve schooling and even build new passenger train lines and expand Internet access. “We are a nation that is growing at two speeds; some live behind and in poverty and others live in the developing part,” he said, alluding to new manufacturing plants and investments but also grinding poverty that affects half the population. Advertisement “There are a great number of Mexicans who live every day worried about the lack of employment and opportunities,” he added. “Those conditions also damage the image of Mexico abroad, and that is the Mexico that must be transformed.” Still, his administration will be watched to see if it is propelling Mexico forward or backward. Mr. Peña Nieto ushers in a new era for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI, which ruled Mexico for more than 70 years before the more conservative National Action Party toppled it in 2000 and again in 2006. Photo Protesters denouncing the legitimacy of Mr. Nieto clashed outside the congressional building with riot police officers.

Credit Josh Haner/The New York Times Mr. Peña Nieto and his associates say they represent a new, chastened party bent on promoting efficiency and economic change — there were no public inaugural celebrations — and promising to fight the kind of corruption long associated with it. “It’s a very common misconception to think that the PRI’s return to power means the return of something that is already in history,” Luis Videgaray, who led the president’s transition team and is now finance minister, said in a recent interview. “The PRI of today is like any other party: a party that competes in a democracy, that accepts results and understands that only through good government would it be able to compete again in elections,” he said. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy But Mr. Peña Nieto hardly begins with a mandate; he won 38 percent of the vote and faces a divided legislature, where his party often blocked significant changes proposed by Mr. Calderon. He recited the oath of office before Congress amid cheers and jeers, mostly from leftist legislators, and left the congressional chamber quickly.

Later, outside the national palace, scores of mostly young masked people, shouting anti-PRI slogans, clashed with the police, set fires, threw rocks and vandalized hotels and stores along several blocks. More than 90 were arrested and several were injured, and Mayor Marcelo Ebrard later blamed anarchist groups for the trouble.. When Mr. Peña Nieto announced his cabinet on Friday, it was clear that he had relied largely on PRI stalwarts, including five former governors. But he also placed several foreign-educated technocrats from his inner circle, including Mr. Videgaray, in prominent positions. Andrew Selee, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute in Washington, said Mr. Peña Nieto seemed intent on reaffirming the power of the state, a hallmark of his party, while also hinting at taking on interest groups. He specifically promised an end to entrenched employment in the education system, seen as a jab at the powerful teachers’ union, which has stymied changes. “After several years of decentralized government in Mexico, Peña Nieto seems intent on showing that the Mexican state is back and that all of the interest groups in the country will need to respect his authority,” Mr. Selee said.

“How significant these efforts are in reality depends on what he does next, but symbolically Peña Nieto reasserted the power of the presidency after years of what many Mexicans feel has been fragmented and ineffective government.” A version of this article appears in print on December 2, 2012, on Page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: New President of Mexico Vows to Focus on Economy. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Biography of Enrique Pena Nieto - President of Mexico Updated March 14, 2016. Biography of Enrique Peña Nieto: Enrique Peña Nieto (July 20, 1966-) is a Mexican lawyer and politician. A member of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), he is the current President of Mexico (elected in 2012). Political Career: Enrique Peña Nieto got an early start on his political career. He was a community organizer while still in his early 20’s and has maintained a presence in politics ever since. In 1999, he worked on the campaign team of Arturo Montiel Rojas, who was elected Governor of Mexico State.

Montiel rewarded him with the position of Administrative Secretary. Peña Nieto was elected to replace Montiel in 2005 as Governor of Mexico State, serving from 2005-2011. In 2011 he won the PRI Presidential nomination and immediately became the front runner for the 2012 elections. 2012 Presidential Election: Peña had been a well-liked governor: he had delivered popular public works for the State of Mexico during his administration. continue reading below our video 10 Best Universities in the United States His popularity, combined with his movie-star good looks, made him the early favorite in the election. His main opponents were leftist Andres Manuel López Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution and Josefina Vázquez Mota of the conservative National Action Party. Peña ran on a platform of security and economic growth and overcame his party's past reputation for corruption in winning the election. A record turnout of 63% of eligible voters chose Peña (38% of the vote) over López Obrador (32%) and Vázquez (25%).

Opposing parties claimed several campaign violations by the PRI, including vote-buying and receiving extra media exposure, but the results stood. Peña took office on December 1, 2012, replacing outgoing President Felipe Calderón . Personal Life: Peña's father Severiano Peña was Mayor of the town of Acambay in the State of Mexico and other relatives have gone far in politics as well. He married Mónica Pretelini in 1993: she died suddenly in 2007, leaving him three children. He remarried in 2010 in a "fairytale" wedding to Mexican telenovelas star Angelica Rivera. He had a child out of wedlock in 2005: his attention to this child (or lack thereof) has been a persistent scandal. Public Perception: Although he was elected easily and most polls suggest a decent approval rating, some find Peña Nieto to be difficult to get a read on. One of his worst public gaffes came at a book fair, where he claimed to be a big fan of the popular novel "The Eagle's Throne" but when pressed could not name the author.

This was a serious blunder, because the the book was written by the prestigious Carlos Fuentes, one of Mexico's most celebrated novelists. Others find Peña Nieto to be robotic and far too slick: he has often been compared to American politician John Edwards (and not in a good way). The notion (correct or not) that he is a stuffed shirt also raises concerns due to the PRI party's notoriously corrupt past. Challenges for Peña Nieto's Administration: President Peña takes control of Mexico during a troubled time. His biggest challenge will be fighting the drug lords that control much of Mexico. Powerful cartels with private armies of professional soldiers make billions trafficking drugs every year: they are ruthless and do not hesitate to murder policemen, judges, journalists, politicians or anyone else who challenges them. Felipe Calderón, Peña’s predecessor as President, declared all-out war on the cartels, kicking over a hornet’s nest of death and mayhem. Mexico’s economy took a huge hit during the international crisis of 2009, and although it is recovering, the economy is very important to Mexican voters.

President Peña is friendly with the USA and has stated that he wants to maintain and strengthen economic ties with his neighbor to the north. Peña Nieto has had a mixed record to date. During his tenure, police captured the nation's most notorious drug lord, Joaquin "el Chapo" Guzman, but Guzman escaped from prison not long afterwards. This was a huge embarrassment for the president. Even worse was the disappearance of 43 college students near the town of Iguala in September 2014: they are presumed dead at the hands of the cartels. Sources: Enrique Pena Nieto | president of Mexico | Britannica.com president of Mexico Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano Enrique Peña Nieto, (born July 20, 1966, Atlacomulco, Mexico), Mexican politician of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional; PRI) who became the president of Mexico in 2012. Prior to that, he served as governor of the state of México (2005–11). Enrique Peña Nieto, 2012.

Christian Palma/AP Peña Nieto was born in México state and was the oldest of four children born to his mother, who was a schoolteacher, and his father, who was an engineer with the national electric company. Peña Nieto earned a bachelor’s degree from Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City , and an M.B.A. from Monterrey Technological Institute. From 1988 to 1990 he served as a university professor. In 1994 Peña Nieto married Mónica Pretelini Sáenz, with whom he had three children; she died in 2007. In 2010 he married Angélica Rivera, a soap opera star on Televisa, Mexico’s largest TV network. Peña Nieto joined the PRI, Mexico’s longtime ruling party, in 1984. He quickly advanced within the party and became active in México state politics, holding such positions as the secretary of administration (2000–02) and state congressman (2003–04). He successfully ran for the post of México state governor in 2005 and held it until 2011.

As governor, Peña Nieto based his agenda on more than 600 compromisos—public commitments or pledges—that he made to his constituents . He continued this practice while campaigning for the presidency, touting more than 250 compromisos that he would deliver if he became president. Like his opponents, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática; PRD), and Josefina Vázquez Mota of the National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional; PAN), he pledged to improve the country’s economy and promised to combat the widespread drug-related violent crime, issues that resonated with voters. His youthful good looks and frequent association with celebrities served to increase his popular appeal. He was, however, dogged by claims that Mexico’s primary television stations, in particular Televisa, were biased in their coverage of him. When voters went to the polls on July 1, 2012, it appeared that Peña Nieto’s message and appeal were enough to overcome the PRI’s legacy of authoritative rule and corruption.

Preliminary results indicated that Peña Nieto had been victorious, having won more than 38 percent of the vote, ahead of his nearest challenger, López Obrador, who received almost 32 percent. His apparent victory was clouded, however, amid accusations of widespread irregularities and allegations that the PRI had engaged in vote-buying practices. Evidence of inconsistencies in vote tallies led to a recount of more than half the votes; the results of the recount upheld Peña Nieto’s victory. Still, López Obrador refused to concede, and on July 12 he filed a legal challenge calling for the election results to be invalidated because of the vote-buying allegations and alleged campaign spending violations by Peña Nieto and the PRI. The presidential election results could not be ratified until López Obrador’s complaint was ruled on by Mexico’s Electoral Tribunal. In August it ruled against López Obrador’s complaint and upheld the election results. Britannica Stories Ringling Bros. Folds Its Tent As president-elect, Peña Nieto pledged that there would be transparency in his government and promised to appoint an anticorruption commission.

He reiterated his campaign promises of working toward improving the economy as well as focusing resources to reign in the organized crime syndicates that terrorized Mexican citizens. In light of the PRI’s history of allegedly making deals with drug cartels, Peña Nieto explicitly promised not to do the same. Given that the PRI did not win an outright majority in the legislature, it remained to be seen just how easily he would be able to implement his plans. Peña Nieto was inaugurated on December 1, 2012. Structures of Government: Fact or Fiction? Shortly after his inauguration, Peña Nieto announced a “Pact for Mexico” that joined the PRI, the PAN, and the PRD in support of a 95-point agenda of policy reform. Many members of the PAN and the PRD were less than happy about their leaders’ decision to collaborate with the PRI; however, the agreement led to congressional approval for a series of major initiatives affecting fiscal policy, public education, and the energy and telecommunications sectors.

Most notably, Peña Nieto’s administration sought to attract investment from foreign oil companies to revitalize the country’s declining oil and gas industry, and in December 2013 the Congress amended those articles of the constitution that gave Pemex , the national oil company, exclusive control over the exploration, production, refining, storage, and distribution of oil, natural gas, and basic petrochemicals. Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies In February 2014 the Mexican navy’s marines made good on Peña Nieto’s promise to aggressively combat organized crime when they captured Joaquín (“El Chapo”) Guzmán Loera —the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, the country’s largest—in Mazatlán. Nevertheless, murders, forced disappearances, kidnappings for ransom, and extortion remained serious problems. Indeed, in late September 43 students from a rural teachers college in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, disappeared after being seized by police and then turned over to a local drug gang, who allegedly murdered them, sparking international outrage and creating the most-severe political crisis yet to confront the Peña Nieto administration.

In 2014 the Peña Nieto administration pushed through far-reaching political and electoral reform in advance of 2015’s midterm election. The elections—which were seen widely as a referendum on Peña Nieto’s presidency—came with the Mexican economy struggling (GDP growth in 2013–14 declined to less than 2 percent from 4 percent in 2011–12) and the president still facing criticism over the deaths of the 43 students as well as embroiled in a corruption scandal related to accusations of his purchase of a home from government contractors. In the June 2015 election, support for the PRI fell from the levels it had achieved in the 2009 election (dropping to about 29 percent with some nine-tenths of the vote counted, compared with 37 percent in 2009); however, the party’s ally, the Mexican Green Ecologist Party (Partido Verde Ecologista de México; PVEM), made up the difference and positioned the ruling coalition to command a solid majority in the 500-seat chamber of Deputies.

Peña Nieto’s administration received a major blow on the night of July 11, 2015, when Guzmán escaped from the maximum-security Altiplano prison near Toluca through a shaft beneath the shower in his cell and a more than 1-mile- (1.6-km-) long tunnel. The dramatic escape was all the more damaging for Peña Nieto because on television in 2014 he had said that if Guzmán were to escape again, “it would be unforgivable.” Moreover, Peña Nieto ran the risk of incurring the wrath of the U.S. government, whose request for Guzmán’s extradition he had refused. On January 8, 2016, however, Peña Nieto was able to tweet “Mission Accomplished: we have him” when Guzmán was recaptured after a raid by marines on a house in Los Mochis , Sinaloa, following a massive manhunt. Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Nonetheless, by midyear Peña Nieto’s approval rating had dropped to levels not experienced by a Mexican president since the 1990s.

Many Mexicans blamed him for the country’s struggling economy and a resurgence of violence. There also were widespread accusations of corruption and suspicion that the government was colluding with drug dealers. Criticism of the president had intensified in April after an international commission looking into the disappearance of the 43 students curtailed its work, claiming that the government had obstructed its investigation. In August Peña Nieto faced claims that he had plagiarized portions of his law school thesis. More nay-saying followed Peña Nieto’s meeting in late August 2016 with U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump , who had called illegal Mexican immigrants to the United States rapists and promised to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border that he said would be paid for by Mexico. Many Mexicans could not understand what the president thought he would gain from inviting Trump to visit Mexico City, but among the explanations offered for issuing the invitation was an earlier desire to invite Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to visit and the belief that it was necessary to invite both candidates to avoid the appearance of partiality.

More about Enrique Peña Nieto 3 References found in Britannica Articles Assorted References Institutional Revolutionary Party (in Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ) External Links Enrique Peña Nieto Wins Mexican Presidential Election | TIME.com Follow @TIMEWorld Shortly before he was assassinated in 1994, Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio admitted he had a dilemma. The long dictatorial reign of Colosio’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which had ruled Mexico since 1929, was under threat from two increasingly potent opposition groups: the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD). While the PAN and PRD represented genuine political philosophies, the PRI stood for little more than amassing power — and holding onto it in the most corrupt manner possible. Colosio knew the PRI had to bring something more meaningful than fraud to the ballot box. So Colosio took a cue from Bill Clinton , a Democrat who had recently won the U.S. presidency with a centrist approach.

“That’s where the PRI is going to position itself,” Colosio told me in an interview then, “as the socially progressive but more economically responsible alternative.” Colosio never got a chance to break in that platform: most Mexicans believe that PRI hard-liners, fearful that Colosio also planned to make Mexico more democratic, had him murdered in March 1994. His replacement, Ernesto Zedillo, won the election, but the PAN finally toppled the PRI in the 2000 presidential race. (PHOTOS: Mexico’s PRI and Enrique Peña Nieto Eye a Return to Power ) The PRI recaptured Mexico’s presidency last night, July 1 — and its candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, may have shown the country’s conservatives and liberals that Colosio’s vision wasn’t that far off. Peña hardly won a mandate: he won just 38% of the vote and his margin of victory was half the double-digit spread most polls had predicted.

The PRD’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who narrowly lost the 2006 contest to current President Felipe Calderón of the PAN, took second with 32%, while the PAN’s Josefina Vázquez Mota barely topped 25% at a distant third. (Mexican Presidents are constitutionally limited to one six-year term.) But Peña’s victory, just six years after the last PRI candidate got only 22% in the 2006 race, makes it clear that there is room after all in Mexico’s presidential politics for a third, centrist alternative. Peña, 45, a lawyer and former governor of powerful Mexico state, adjoining Mexico City, hails from a prominent old PRI family. But he cast himself as the more democratic “new face” of the party, even in his victory speech last night.

“Mexicans have given our party a new chance,” Peña said before insisting that his is not the nefarious dinosaur PRI of the 20th century: “I am,” he declared, “the PRI that’s coming.” Many Mexicans feel that when Peña ran Mexico state from 2005 to 2011, he did prove himself a more progressive administrator than they were used to seeing from a PRI-ista. And as a presidential candidate he laid out the kind of pragmatic platform Colosio tried to envisage 18 years ago. Mexico’s gravest crisis is security — a never ending drug war has seen more than 55,000 murders and 10,000 disappearances since 2006 — and neither Peña nor his rivals offered much in the way of new solutions to that hydra-headed problem.

(Peña last night had to reassure Mexicans — and Washington — that he has no plans to go soft on drug trafficking , as the PRI did in the late 20th century.) But Mexico’s limp economy and gaping inequality run a close second, and when I asked Peña last month about his presidential priorities, he went straight to the pocketbook issues: “Mexico urgently needs a series of structural reforms that will detonate its true economic potential for once and generate more public welfare.” (MORE: Are Mexican Voters Taking a Gamble on the PRI? ) Among them, he said, was an energy overhaul — the same PRI dinosaurs who allegedly put a bullet through Colosio’s head would be apoplectic about Peña’s proposal to amend the Constitution to permit private and even foreign investment in Mexico’s state-run oil monopoly, Pemex — as well as labor, tax and social-security reforms. He has also pledged to rein in the nation’s economy-suffocating monopolies.

Yet critics say Peña, who is married to Angelica Rivera, one of Mexico’s famous telenovela (soap opera) stars, should start by dropping his own cozy relationship with the leviathan television network Televisa, which was the PRI’s mouthpiece in the 20th century and has allegedly given Peña favorable coverage. They also accused Peña’s campaign of vote buying — an echo of the old PRI’s standard modus operandi — which included handing out grocery and department-store debit cards at rallies. But the PAN and PRD were accused of some of the same shenanigans. What the two losing parties really need to scrutinize this morning is a mirror, and then ask why Peña and the PRI were able to wedge themselves between Mexico’s conservative and liberal presidential votes this time. They can start with the very real notion that López, who finished so strongly in 2006, should have won this year — and probably would have had he not become the unhinged leftist back in 2006, after electoral authorities gave the victory to Calderón with a razor-thin, half-percentage-point margin.

López, who is an admired former Mexico City mayor but is known for his petulant streak, didn’t just protest the results; he had his supporters close down Mexico City’s streets for weeks. He still won the PRD’s 2012 nomination, and to his credit, he set a more moderate tone and had another strong finish on Sunday. But his 2006 antics were too fresh in too many voters’ minds: to them, the PRD, with López as its standard bearer, still seemed the party of the erratic left. (MORE: From 2006: An Election Standoff in Mexico ) Even today, with a clear 6-point loss staring him in the face, López has yet to concede. Fortunately for the PRD, his likely successor for 2018, popular Mexico City mayor Marcelo Ebrard, looks more pragmatic. The PAN, meanwhile, looks like a spent force 12 years after it played Mexico’s democratic hero. And that’s due largely to the dour, prickly figure of Calderón.

His predecessor, Vicente Fox, wasn’t a particulary effective President, but he at least gave the PAN a more modern and appealing image that helped Mexicans forget the party’s stern, conservative Roman Catholic DNA. Calderón, however, is one of the most inept communicators in Mexican presidential history — and his party has suffered not just from his bold but ill-conceived military strategy against Mexico’s powerful drug cartels, but also from a sense that the PRI-ista prepotencia, or arrogance, of the 20th century was simply being replaced by PAN-ista prepotencia in the 21st. All of that helped open the door for the PRI’s second chance as much as Televisa favoritism and gift cards did. At the same time, the fact that Peña was held to under 40% of the vote proves that while the PRI may have scored a presidential return, this was hardly a restoration. (It’s a reminder too that Mexico may need to create a second-round runoff election.) The PRI also looks likely to lose control of the lower house of Congress, and many of its gubernatorial candidates, especially in states where PRI corruption has persisted, were roundly defeated.

Mexico’s fledgling democracy performed well in that regard — which means the “PRI that’s coming” will have a much harder time amassing the kind of power the party once had. —With reporting by Dolly Mascareñas / Mexico City Padgett is a Miami-based journalist and TIME contributor Subscribe Popular Among Subscribers The silence of Los Pinos | The Economist The silence of Los Pinos The paradox that is Enrique Peña Nieto Nov 21st 2015 Tweet IN THE first 18 months after he became Mexico’s president in December 2012 Enrique Peña Nieto enjoyed extraordinary success. Through deft political manoeuvring he enacted a series of structural reforms of his country’s sluggish economy that had eluded his three predecessors, including a historic constitutional amendment overturning a ban on private investment in energy dating from the 1930s. But then it all started to go wrong. First a heavy-handed tax reform alienated private business. The murder of 43 student-teachers in September 2014 by drug traffickers in cahoots with local authorities in the southern state of Guerrero shocked the country.

The revelation that the president’s wife and his finance minister had both acquired luxury houses with the help of Grupo Higa, a construction company that had won government contracts, pointed to conflicts of interest at the top (though all denied wrongdoing). The transport minister then hastily cancelled a contract he had awarded to a consortium including Grupo Higa to build a $3.6 billion high-speed railway. In this section Reprints In July the escape from prison of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, Mexico’s most notorious drug trafficker, added humiliation to embarrassment. All this has undermined public support for Mr Peña. In a country that is traditionally deferential to its presidents, his approval rating slumped to 34% in the wake of Mr Guzmán’s flight. The government is the butt of remorseless contempt among Mexico City’s chattering classes. Many Mexicans point to two big problems with which they associate Mr Peña’s administration—the continuing lack of security and the prevalence of corruption. Officials seem both bemused and resentful at the lack of credit the government gets for its achievements. After all, while Mexico’s economy may not be stellar, it continues to grow steadily, which is more than can be said for some others in Latin America.

The reforms are starting to show results that people can appreciate, such as a sharp fall in mobile-phone charges. Congress has approved a constitutional amendment to set up a grandly named National Anti-Corruption System. Many things, from education reform to the car industry, are going well in Mexico. Even on security, the full picture is more mixed than the headlines. The murder rate fell from 2012 until March this year, though it is now edging up again. Several northern states where mafia violence raged are much calmer. In the central state of Michoacán, the federal government has defanged both a particularly vicious drug gang and local vigilantes. A new programme of community policing in some of the most dangerous neighbourhoods (with a total population of 2.5m) has “measurable results”, says a security official. But the government’s failures are more visible. These include Guerrero, which has become one of the world’s biggest sources of heroin. Parts of the state are “totally penetrated by organised crime”, the official admits. To his critics, Mr Peña has failed to give priority to security and the rule of law partly because many local politicians in his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) benefit from the status quo.

That applies even more to corruption. Congress is due to approve by May the laws required to implement the new anti-corruption system. If there is a “50% chance” that these laws will have teeth it is because Mexican society and academia are becoming increasingly conscious of the cost of corruption, says Mauricio Merino of CIDE, a university. Mr Peña’s most surprising failure is political. Paradoxically, the president who piloted ambitious reforms has proved incapable of reacting to events. “They don’t know how to respond to public opinion,” says Héctor Aguilar Camín, a historian, of Mr Peña’s small coterie of aides. He calls the problem “the silence of Los Pinos” (the presidential offices). In the days when the PRI ran Mexico as a one-party state, presidents were often ruthless in sacking subordinates who failed. Not Mr Peña: the finance, transport and interior ministers all remain in their jobs, despite the conflicts of interest and Mr Guzmán’s escape. The president seems to place personal loyalty above public accountability. In the narrowest of political terms his judgment may be correct. Despite all the scandals, the PRI and its allies kept their congressional majority in a mid-term election in June.

Mr Peña may yet be able to get his chosen successor elected in 2018 merely by conserving the PRI alliance’s hard-core vote of around 36%. That is because the opposition is fragmented, and the constitution does not require a run-off ballot. The problem is that this formula will intensify Mexicans’ disillusionment with their still-young democracy. Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto faces outcry over £4.4m mansion | World news | The Guardian Enrique Peña Nieto Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto faces outcry over £4.4m mansion Mansion apparently designed for president’s family owned by company associated with Mexico’s first high-speed rail contract Mexico's president Enrique Peña Nieto (right) speaks to his wife, who described the mansion in a recent interview as the 'real family home'.

Photograph: Eduardo Verdugo/AP Jo Tuckman in Mexico City Monday 10 November 2014 14.57 EST Last modified on Monday 10 November 2014 19.55 EST Close This article is 2 years old The Mexican president is under pressure to explain why a company associated with the country’s first high-speed rail contract owns a mansion apparently designed for the presidential family and described by his actor wife as the “real family home” in a society magazine interview. The revelations, published on Sunday on the website of leading Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui, have opened a new front against Enrique Peña Nieto , who is already struggling to deal with the fallout from the disappearance and probable massacre of 43 students six weeks ago. Many observers claim the government’s long-standing tolerance of corruption is part of the background to the current security crisis. The modernist white mansion boasts seven bedrooms, marble floors, a spa, a lift, an underground garage and mood lighting that can bathe the building in pink, violet and orange. Located in an exclusive neighbourhood of Mexico City, it has been valued it at about $7m (£4.4m).

The crux of the investigation rests on the discovery that the mansion is registered under the name of Ingenieria Inmobiliaria del Centro, a company owned by Grupo Higa, which is also associated with the Chinese-led consortium that was awarded a $3.7bn contract on 3 November to build a high-speed rail link between the capital and the city of Queretaro. Pinterest Mexico’s president is embroiled in a scandal over a mansion with links to a Chinese-led consortium awarded the contract to build the first high-speed train in Mexico. Photograph: Hector Guerrero /AFP/Getty Images The government stunned investors last Thursday when it rescinded the contract, citing the need to address existing accusations of favouritism. These included complaints about the participation of Grupo Higa, which is headed by a personal friend of the president and, according to the Aristegui report, benefited from contracts worth $652m while Peña Nieto was governor of Mexico State between 2005 and 2011. The president’s office responded quickly to the revelations with a statement claiming that the president’s wife, Angelica Rivera, was in the process of buying the property from the company for an unspecified price.

The house, it notes, is built on two adjacent lots that back on to a house already owned by Rivera, a popular telenovela actor who met Peña Nieto when she was contracted to promote his administration in the State of Mexico as he was preparing his presidential bid. The couple married in November 2010. The statement said Rivera made a down payment of 30% in January 2012, almost a year before her husband became president and that “the objective” was “to increase the space of her own home.” The statement stresses that Rivera “is economically solvent and has sufficient resources to buy the properties”. The statement cites a 2013 article in Hola magazine as proof that there has never been any attempt to hide the house. Hola photographed Rivera in the mansion she refers to as the “real home” to which the family will return when they leave the presidential residence at the end of Peña Nieto’s term in 2018. Pinterest The mansion at the centre of the political spat borders property already owned by Angelica Rivera, the wife of the Mexican president. Photograph: Hector Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images These answers have not satisfied critics.

“The response of the presidency is full of gaps, holes and lacunae that need to be clarified,” political analyst Denise Dresser told said on Arisegui’s breakfast radio show on Monday. “The central point is that the house belongs to a company that has again and again received benefits from the Peña Nieto government.” Critics said the statement ignored the report’s allegations that the house was specifically designed for the couple and their six children – three each from previous marriages. This was confirmed by the building’s architect, Miguel Angel Aragones. In a television interview in October 2013, he said it had been “a real delight” working directly with Peña Nieto, who he described as “a first rate guy; intelligent, sensitive, respectful, and friendly”. Aristegui’s website said it was refused an interview with the architect because a confidentiality agreement meant he was unable to discuss the house.

Question: Enrique Pena Nieto became president of which country in 2012?
Answer: Mexico