The government of Mexico’s new centre-left president, Enrique Peña Nieto, is set to embark on reforms in energy, taxation and labour law that should be a stimulus to the country’s capital markets.
On July 1, Peña Nieto – who represents the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) – won 38.2% of the popular vote against the hard-left candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD), with 31.6%. Josefina Vazquez Mota, of the centre-right National Action Party (PAN) – the party of outgoing president Felipe Calderón – achieved 25.4%. Peña Nieto will assume office for a six-year term on December 1.
The new Chamber of Deputies, Mexico’s lower legislative house – whose first session will take place on September 1 – will include 207 members from PRI, 114 from PAN, 99 from PRD and 78 members from other parties. In the new Senate, PRI will have 52 members, PAN 38, PRD 22, and others 16.
Twenty-one state governors belong to PRI, while three represent the coalition between PAN and PRD, four are from PAN, and four represent PRD.
"On many occasions when Mexico had presidential transitions in the past – in 1976, 1982, 1987, 1994 – it was accompanied by a huge financial crisis," say Carlos Ramirez, lead analyst for Mexico at Eurasia, a Washington DC-based think-tank.