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MEXICO CITY – The first official results have been released in Mexico’s elections, and Enrique Pena Nieto of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is set to become the next president.

With more than 80 per cent of the votes counted from Sunday’s elections, the country’s federal election institute on Monday put Pena Nieto in the lead, winning 37 per cent of the country’s votes.

Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador from the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) gained 30 per cent of the votes and ruling party candidate Josefina Vasquez Mota trailed with 25 per cent.

Pena Nieto, 45, is ahead by a narrower margin than early polls suggested, with many polls predicting he would win by at least a 10 percentage point, leading to claims of victory by Nieto’s campaign team.

Celebrations at the headquarters of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) started after the polls closed.
 
Pena Nieto declared: “We all won in this election. Mexico won.” “This is just the start of the work we have before us.”
 
With his soap-actress wife Angelica Rivera by his side, he thanked Mexican voters for giving the PRI a second chance, saying his administration would have a “new way of governing”.
 
“The fight against crime will continue with a new strategy to reduce violence and protect the lives of Mexicans,” he said. “Let it be clear, with organized crime there will be no pacts or truce.”
 
The election campaign was dominated by the economy and the war on drugs.
 
“There will be no pact nor truce with organised crime,” Mr Pena Nieto said.
 
He had been presented as the new face of the PRI, a break with the party’s long and at times murky past that included links with drug gangs.
 
The party held on to power for 71 years until it was defeated in 2000.
 
Thousands of police were on duty for the vote, amid fears of intimidation from drug gangs.
 
Mexicans were also electing a new congress and some state governors.
 
​​Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party ruled Mexico for 71 years until 2000, when voters elected National Action Party (PAN) candidate Vicente Fox.  Outgoing President Felipe Calderon, also from PAN, followed in 2006, but his tenure has been plagued by economic stagnation and rampant drug violence.
Calderon deployed the military to fight the drug cartels shortly after he took office.  More than 50,000 people have been killed in drug violence since then.

The PAN candidate in this year’s election, Josefina Vazquez Mota, finished third in the voting.
 
Almost 80 million people were eligible to cast their ballots on Sunday.
 
Police and army were deployed to protect voters from intimidation by drug cartels at polling booths.
Officials said the voting was largely peaceful, but reported some initial problems as a number of stations opened later than planned.
 
With nearly half the Mexican population living in poverty, the economy was one of the main issues in the campaign.
 
Unemployment remains low at roughly 4.5%, but a huge divide remains between the rich and the poor.
 
The war on drugs also played an important part in the campaign and the main opposition candidates have been critical of Calderon’s policies.
 
Mexicans were also electing 500 deputies, 128 senators, six state governors, the head of government in the Federal District (which includes Mexico City) and local governments.
 
Source: Agencies / WWW.TIMESOFEARTH.COM