YOUR AD HERE »

Jack’s Second Headline!

JACK SHELTON
jshelton@swiftcom.com

MEXICO CITY — The party that ruled Mexico with an iron grip for most of the last century has sailed back into power, promising a government that will be modern, responsible and open to criticism.

Though Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate Enrique Pena Nieto’s margin of victory was clear in the preliminary count from Sunday’s election, it was not the mandate the party had anticipated from pre-election polls that had at times shown the youthful, 45-year-old with support of more than half of Mexico’s voters.



Instead, he won 38 percent support, about 7 points more than his nearest rival, according to a representative count of the ballots, and he went to work immediately to win over the two-thirds who didn’t vote for him, many of whom rejected his claim that he represented a reformed and repentant party.



“We’re a new generation. There is no return to the past,” he said in his victory speech. “It’s time to move on from the country we are to the Mexico we deserve and that we can be … where every Mexican writes his own success story.”

But his top challenger, leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, refused to concede, saying he would await a full count and legal review. He won roughly 31 percent of the vote, according to the preliminary count which has a margin of error of 1 percentage point. Lopez Obrador in 2006 paralyzed Mexico City streets with hundreds of thousands of supporters when he narrowly lost to President Felipe Calderon.