Peña Nieto is the hands down favorite to become Mexico's next president, who voters will elect July 1, 2012. Preference polls over the past year have consistently shown Peña Nieto capturing 40%+ of the ballots, easily crushing any challenger. His opponent on the left will be Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) nominee. The National Action Party (PAN) will select its nominee next February. Three, including Mexico's only female candidate, Josefina Mota (http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/10/josefina-vazquez-mota-likley-to-be-2012.html), are vying for the chance to be PAN's 2012 standard bearer.
To my taste, Enrique Peña Nieto is 100% plastic. He is the stuff of Hollywood, a Robert Redford-style politician (The Candidate, 1972), right out of central casting. And his wife is literally an actress -- of the soap opera, daytime TV variety. But I acknowledge, both are wildly popular here. The rumor is that U.S. officials have already accepted Peña Nieto's election as an inevitability, and are preparing to deal with him. He traveled to Washington in mid-November to "introduce himself" and attend a round of PR events, giving a brief overview of his policies (http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/11/pris-likley-presidential-candidate.html).
Peña Nieto gets made fun of here not infrequently, both by political opponents and the press. I suspect it may be largely because of his personal style -- the man always looks so perfect, with every strand of hair just in place, and impeccably dressed in immaculately tailored business clothes. Of course, that Ken-doll approach works quite well with Mexico's affluent, but it may tend to put off more common folk on the street.
Recently Peña Nieto was unable to answer a question about how much a kilo of tortillas costs these days in Mexico, to which the candidate imperiously replied, "No soy la ama de la casa" -- "I'm not a housewife." The statement was rather more condescending in Spanish than it is in English, and it might well be regarded as a slight insult in a country which much reveres its beloved amas de la casa. Josefina Mota wasted no time in capitalizing on Peña Nieto's testy reply. "I am a housewife and a mother, and I'm proud to be so. I'm also proud to be a Mexican woman, and a member of PAN and a candidate for the presidency," Mota told the press.
The candidate also flubbed when questioned about the minimum wage in Mexico, which has been in the news since it was raised recently. Peña Nieto guessed that it was "about" 900 pesos per month, when it fact it is double that, or some 1,800 pesos per month. Perhaps, though, all of the presidential candidates should worry less about Peña Nieto's wrong answer, and more about the minimum wage itself. When the lowest paid workers in a national economy are guaranteed nothing more than 60 pesos per day -- that's about $4.50 USD at the current exchange rate -- surely something is not functioning very well.
In another public event, Peña Nieto tripped rather embarrassingly when asked to name some books which have influenced him, and his favorite writers. Today he acknowledged that he had confused the name of a book and its author, but the candidate told a crowd of wildly cheering PRI supporters, "What I will not forget (during the campaign) is the violence, the poverty and the desperate lack of hope in our country."
Peña Nieto also said, "PRI does not need and does not want a single vote on the edge of the law." The reference was to recent elections in Michoacán state, in which a drug cartel boss allegedly threatened voters in several municipal elections, telling them their houses would be burned down and they and their families would be killed if they failed to vote for local PRI candidates. The case is under a pending federal criminal investigation. http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/11/mexicos-attorney-general-will.html.
PRI ruled Mexico for 70 years until it was defeated in the 2000 election by former PAN president Vicente Fox. Felipe Calderón was elected six years later on the PAN ticket. Mexican presidents are limited to a single term. PRI, which controls the majority of the 32 state gubernatorial posts, is more determined than ever to recapture national office next year. All of its hopes ride on Enrique Peña Nieto.
I'll be posting regularly in the months ahead on the three 2012 candidates and their policy positions, especially as they relate to drug war and economic strategies.
Prognostication: I´ll go out on a limb now, just so everyone can tell me how wrong I was six months from now. López Obrador is the man to watch. Polls show him winning only 19% of the vote in a contest against pretty-boy Peña Nieto, and indeed López Obrador, at first glance, is far less impressive a candidate. He dresses plain and he talks plainly, he has no pedigree whatever, but he speaks very much from the heart to millions who remain locked in desperate generational poverty (48% of the population of Yucatán state, for instance). In the 2006 presidential election, López Obrador lost to current PAN president Felipe Calderón by one-half of one percent, the tightest race in Mexico's electoral history. Some - including PRI members - say there was fraud at the highest levels, and many of López Obrador's supporters still refer to him as "the legitimate president of Mexico." Whatever the truth of 2006, the candidate has already demonstrated that he has the capacity to win. A July 2012 Big Surprise is not impossible.
What does Mexican president Felipe Calderón think of PRI and Peña Nieto?: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/10/will-pris-2012-pretty-boy-candidate-be.html.
A PRI victory could mean a return to "the good old days" in Mexico: http://mexicogulfreporter-supplement.blogspot.com/2011/11/back-to-good-old-days-in-mexico.html.
PRI is "lawless," says 2010 Noble Prize Laureate in Literature: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/10/writer-excoriates-mexicos-pri-party.html.
The beast in the cave and the soap opera actor: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/11/monster-in-dark-cave-and-soap-opera.html.
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