Our Views: A new broom for old party
July 15, 2012
While the Mexican president’s seat of power is called “the eagle’s throne,” it might be more apt to ask if President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto can be the leopard who changes the spots of his party.
Nieto is the first president of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, since the 2000 election — when the PRI was ejected after decades of one-party rule marked by corruption and no little coziness with drug cartels.
Nieto, 45, sold himself to the public as part of a new generation in PRI. He has named as his security adviser a Colombian general who worked closely with U.S. forces against the drug lords in that country.
Still, his campaign emphasis was on street crime — a continuing problem in the central state of Mexico, where he was governor — not the violence in the northern states along the U.S. border.
“The fight against crime will continue,” he said in his victory speech. “Yes, with a new strategy to reduce violence and protect, above all, the lives of Mexicans. In the face of organized crime, there will be neither negotiation, nor truce.”
We hope for the best during Nieto’s six-year term. Mexico’s success is vital to America, and we hope that close relations will not be sundered.