President of Mexico

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, President of Mexico (elected on Jul 1, 2018 with 54.8% of the vote)

Born: 13 November 1953. Often abbreviated as AMLO, is a Mexican politician who is the President-elect of Mexico after winning the 2018 presidential election.

He began his political career in 1976 as a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Tabasco and eventually became the party’s state leader. In 1989, he joined the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and was the party’s 1994 candidate for Governor of Tabasco. He was the national leader of the PRD between 1996 and 1999. In 2000, he was elected Head of Government of Mexico City. Often described as a populist and a nationalist, López Obrador has been a nationally relevant politician for more than two decades.

López Obrador resigned as Head of Government of Mexico City in July 2005 to enter the 2006 presidential election, representing the Coalition for the Good of All, which was led by the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and included the Citizens’ Movement party and the Labor Party. He received 35.31% of the vote and lost by 0.58%. López Obrador subsequently alleged electoral fraud and refused to concede, leading a several months long takeover of Paseo de la Reforma and the Zócalo in protest.

López Obrador was a candidate for the second time in the 2012 presidential election representing a coalition of the PRD, Labor Party, and Citizens’ Movement. He finished second with 31.59% of the vote. He left the PRD in 2012 and in 2014 founded the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), which he led until 2017.

López Obrador was a candidate for the third time in the 2018 presidential election, representing Juntos Haremos Historia, a coalition of the left-wing Labor Party, right-wing Social Encounter Party, and MORENA. This time, he won in a landslide victory, taking 53 percent of the vote. His policy proposals include increases in financial aid for students and the elderly, amnesty for some drug war criminals, universal access to public colleges, cancellation of the New Mexico City International Airport project, a referendum on energy reforms that ended Pemex’s monopoly in the oil industry, stimulus of the country’s agricultural sector, delay of the renegotiation of NAFTA until after the elections, the construction of more oil refineries, increased social spending, slashing politicians’ salaries and perks and the decentralization of the executive cabinet by moving government departments and agencies from the capital to the states.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9s_Manuel_L%C3%B3pez_Obrador

Enrique Peña Nieto, Former President of Mexico (since Dec 1, 2012)

Enrique Peña Nieto (born 20 July 1966) is the 57th President of Mexico. His six-year term began in 2012. A member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), he served as governor of the State of Mexico from 2005 to 2011. Peña Nieto was declared “president-elect” after the 2012 general election was declared valid by the Federal Electoral Tribunal, amidst accusations of electoral fraud. He took office on 1 December 2012, succeeding Felipe Calderón.

Peña Nieto was born on 20 July 1966 in Atlacomulco, State of Mexico, a city 55 miles northwest from the Mexico City. He is the eldest of four siblings in a middle-class family; his father, Gilberto Enrique Peña del Mazo, was an electrical engineer; his mother, María del Perpetuo Socorro Ofelia Nieto Sánches, a school teacher. He attended Denis Hall School in Alfred, Maine during one year of junior high school in 1979 to learn English. People who knew him in his early years said that he was a sharp dresser, and told teachers at his school that he planned to be governor of the State of Mexico. During his childhood, Peña Nieto was referred to as “Quique,” a nickname short for Enrique. Peña Nieto distinguished himself in childhood for being courteous and tidy and well-groomed. His mother recalls how she would squeeze lemon juice on Peña Nieto’s hair to keep his now famous hairstyle in place. Some neighbors in Atlacomulco recall that Peña Nieto was an “overprotected” kid. After living in Atlacomulco for the first 11 years of his life, Peña Nieto’s family moved to the city of Toluca.

As a teenager, he became a fan of football and spent hours playing chess with his friends; he later learned how to drive his mother’s car and was given his first car. During adolescence, his father would often take him to the campaign rallies of the State of Mexico’s governor, Jorge Jiménez Cantú, a close friend of his. The successor of the governor was Alfredo del Mazo González, a cousin of Peña Nieto’s father. During Del Mazo González’s campaign in 1981, the fifteen-year-old Peña Nieto had his first direct contact with Mexican politics: he began delivering propaganda in favor of his relative, a memory Peña Nieto still recalls as the turning point and start of his deep interest in politics.

In 1984 at the age of 18, Peña Nieto traveled to Mexico City and enrolled in the Universidad Panamericana, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in Law; he later went on to obtain a Master of Arts (MA) degree in Business Administration from ITAM.

Read more – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrique_Pe%C3%B1a_Nieto

Felipe Calderón, Former President of Mexico

A native of Morelia, Michoacán, President Felipe Calderón was born on August 18, 1962.

He obtained a law degree from the Escuela Libre de Derecho, and an MA in Economics from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and in Public Administration from the University of Harvard.

President Felipe Calderón occupied top positions in the party, such as National Youth Leader of the PAN in 1986, Secretary General in 1993 and President of National Action during the three-year period from 1996 to 1999. During his parliamentary career, he was a representative of the Legislative Assembly of the Federal District in 1988 and federal deputy in 1991.

In 2000 he was part of the 58th Federal Period of Office, in which he served as Parliamentary Coordinator of the PAN and President of the Council of Political Coordination. Within public administration, President Felipe Calderón was general director of Banco Nacional de Obras y Servicios Públicos (BANOBRAS) in 1993 and Energy Secretary in 2004.

In 2005, he was elected PAN candidate for the presidency and on 2 July, he won the presidential elections for the period from 2006 to 2012.