Enrique Peña Nieto

The Constitutional President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, is ranked among country's most handsome politicians. He married Televisa soap star Angelica Rivera in 2010. Peña Nieto admitted that he had affairs and fathered two children during his first marriage to Monica Pretelini Saenz. was Born on 20 July 1966, he holds a BA in Law from the Universidad Panamericana and a MA in Business Administration from the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM).

Enrique Peña Nieto has been a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI) since 1984. Enrique Peña Nieto joined public service at an early age, occupying several positions in the government of the State of Mexico. From 2000 to 2002, he was Secretary of Administration and from 2003 to 2004, he was elected Representative of the 13th District in the 65th Session of the State of Mexico, where he was Coordinator of the Parliamentary Group of the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

In 2005, Enrique Peña Nieto ran for the governorship of the State of Mexico. During his campaign, he toured the state, listening to people and signing commitments before a notary, ranging from remodeling clinics and schools to building roads and hospitals. After a successful campaign, he was elected governor of the State of Mexico, during the period from 16 September 2005 to 15 September 2011.

Toluca, the capital of Mexico State (Estado de Mexico - Edomex) is the headquarters for Popular Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) Governor Enrique Pena Nieto. Elected governor in 2005, Pena Nieto, the party and other political opinion makers had pitched the 05 July 2009 federal and local elections as a litmus test for his ability to produce favorable electoral results for the PRI and prove himself as more than just a pretty political face. He passed the test in spades. The PRI went from controlling 55 municipalities to 97 (of 125), from 19 to 40 local congressional slots (of 45), and from 7 to 38 federal deputies (of 40 directly elected from Mexico State, plus a number of plurinominal seats).

He drew national attention as governor of the State of Mexico from 2005 to 2011, when he built his reputation by making "pledges" to the State of Mexico, focusing on public works and infrastructure improvement. During his term as governor, Enrique Peña Nieto achieved significant progress in infrastructure and public services, particularly in health. He restructured finances in the State of Mexico, reducing public debt and increasing expenditure targeting works and programs, without the need to increase taxes.

In 2011, at the end of his term as governor, Enrique Peña Nieto expressed his hopes of running for the presidency. After an intense electoral campaign, characterized by the signing of national and state commitments, he won the elections on 1 July 2012.

Mexico held national elections on Sunday 01 July 2012. Election officials said that the PRI candidate, Enrique Pena Nieto, had 38 percent of the vote, over former Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who had 31 percent. Enrique Pena Nieto was expected to win, having been bolstered by voter fatigue due to economic stagnation and a wave of lawlessness that have plagued Mexico under the conservative National Action Party, or PAN.

It is widely accepted that television monopoly Televisa backed the governor and provided him with an extraordinary amount of airtime and other kinds of coverage. Moreover, as the godson of ex-President Salinas and made from the entrenched Mexico State PRI political mold, Pena Nieto was not known for transparency when it came to his friends and allies -- he helped shield former PRI Mexico State Governor Arturo Montiel Rojas from prosecution for corruption charges early on in his tenure. The Mexico State PRI had a reputation for taking advantage of gaps in transparency to build campaign war chests, and given the amount of money flowing through the state and Pena Nieto's status as a presidential front-runner, it seemed unlikely that his administration would not look to exploit such opportunities.

A large part of that lawlessness stemmed from the country's drug violence. Since President Felipe Calderon deployed the military against Mexico's drug cartels in 2006, more than 50,000 people have been killed. The candidate in second place in opinion polls was leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who lost the 2006 race by half a point to President Calderon and claimed fraud, leading massive protests in the capital for weeks. Trailing is PAN candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota who hoped to become the country's first female president.

Economically, 2017 saw historical devaluations of the Mexican peso, as well as widespread protests over gasoline price hikes, colloquially known as the "gasolinazo." By June 2018, outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto, first elected in 2012, sported a historically low approval rating — slipping as low as 17 percent last year, according to Pew Research Center polling. The Mexican constitution restricts candidates to one six-year term, with no chance of re-election. And Pena Nieto's six years were marked by social and economic turmoil. In 2012, Pena Nieto came to power in a country dealing with violence — much of it linked to the country's notorious drug cartels — and a sluggish economy. Pena Nieto's critics said he had done little to address those ills, with some insisting he has made them worse.