Enrique Peña Nieto

Biography

Enrique Peña Nieto was born in Atlacomulco, State of Mexico, in 1966 and joined the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1984. He studied law at the Universidad Panamericana and took an MBA at the Monterrey Institute of Technology. He rose in state politics under his mentor Arturo Montiel, serving in the 1990s as his chief of staff and in several state posts, including secretary of administration from 2000 to 2002, and was elected to the state congress in 2003.

Peña Nieto was governor of the State of Mexico from 2005 to 2011 and won the 2012 presidential election, returning the PRI to power. The day after taking office in December 2012 he signed the Pact for Mexico with the main opposition parties, which led to reforms that broke up state monopolies, opened the energy sector, overhauled education and modernised financial regulation.

His later years in office were marked by violence and scandal: the disappearance of 43 students in Iguala in 2014, reports that the family's 'White House' mansion was registered to a company linked to a government contractor, and the 2015 prison escape of Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán. He faced criticism for inviting candidate Donald Trump to Mexico in 2016, and in November 2018 he signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Since leaving office he has been named in the Odebrecht bribery investigation.