Mexico Politics: Mexican Presidental Race Begins in Earnest

With the official filing of candidacies this past weekend, the race for the Mexican presidency is off and running. The current president, Felipe Calderón, of the PAN party, cannot run for re-election. His party currently has three candidates competing for its nomination. Enrique Peña Nieto is the candidate of PRI, which held total power for 70 years. In public opinion polls, he holds a significant lead over all other candidates, including Andrés Manuel López Óbredor of the leftist PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution).

The three candidates of PAN (National Action Party) launced their campaigns against the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) candidate Enrique Peña Nieto on the first day of the primaries leading to the election of the Presidency of the Republic next July.

Ernesto Cordero said he did not forget the 70 years of crisis and the "corrupt PRI government," nor the fact that the State of Mexico (where Peña Nieto was governor) has the largest number of femicides. On Saturday, Peña said he can forget the author of a book, as happened in Guadalajara, but not violence.

Santiago Creel, meanwhile, "I don't want to see a government of ignorance come to be". Josefina Vazquez Mota said: "I am the lady of the house that others speak of with contempt." (This was a reference to the report that)  a week ago ... in an interview, Peña Nieto said that he did not know the price of tortillas because he was not "the lady of the house."