Enrique Peña Nieto OMRI CYC GCB (Spanish pronunciation: [enˈrike ˈpeɲa ˈnjeto] ⓘ; born 20 July 1966), commonly referred to by his initials EPN, is a Mexican retired politician who served as the 64th president of Mexico from 2012 to 2018.

During his first four years, Peña Nieto led a breakup of state monopolies, liberalized Mexico's energy sector, instituted public education reforms, and modernized the country's financial regulation.

In 1985 at the age of 18, Peña Nieto traveled to Mexico City and enrolled in the Panamerican University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in legal studies.

[19] During his final years in college, Peña Nieto worked for a public notary in Mexico City, around the same time his relative Alfredo del Mazo González was mentioned as a firm candidate for the 1988 presidential elections.

[19] Peña Nieto formally started his political career under the mentorship of Montiel Rojas, becoming the Secretary of the Citizen Movement of Zone I of the State Directive Committee of the National Confederation of Popular Organizations (CNOP), one of the three sectors of the PRI.

[19] In 2001, Montiel Rojas named Peña Nieto Sub-secretary of Interior in the State of Mexico, a position that granted him the opportunity to meet and forge relationships with top PRI politicians and business leaders.

[28] According to El Universal, during Peña Nieto's first year as governor, his administration delivered 10 of the structural promises he had advocated in his campaign – marking the lowest figure in his six-year term.

Regarding public health services, 196 hospitals and medical centers were built throughout the state, and the number of mobile units used to attend remote and vulnerable areas doubled.

He was accompanied by the writer Héctor Aguilar Camín, the former governor of Mexico's Central Bank, Guillermo Ortiz Martínez, and the journalist Jaime Sánchez Susarrey.

[39] Six days earlier, the senator and preliminary candidate of the PRI, Manlio Fabio Beltrones, withdrew from the race and gave Peña Nieto a clear path toward the presidency.

Before and after the inauguration, in an event that has been labeled by the media as the 1DMX,[47][48][49][50] protesters rioted outside of the National Palace and clashed with Federal Police forces, vandalizing hotel structures and setting fires in downtown Mexico City.

[67] While campaigning, Peña Nieto appointed a former general of the National Police of Colombia as his external advisor for public security and promised to reduce the murder rate in Mexico by 50% by the end of his six-year term.

[70][68] During the three-month campaign, Peña Nieto was not explicit on his anti-crime strategy, and many analysts wondered whether he was holding back politically sensitive details or simply did not know how he would attempt to squelch the violence and carry out the next stage in Mexico's drug war.

[68] United States officials were worried that the election of Peña Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party may mean a return to the old PRI tactics of "corruption [and] backroom deals" with the cartels in exchange for bribes and relative peace.

[73] The security policy of Peña Nieto prioritized the reduction of violence rather than attacking Mexico's drug-trafficking organizations head-on, marking a departure from the strategy of the previous six years during Felipe Calderón's administration.

One of the biggest contrasts is the focus on lowering murder rates, kidnappings, and extortions, as opposed to arresting or killing the country's most-wanted drug lords and intercepting their shipments.

[74] The Interior Ministry announced that 15 specialized police units were being formed to exclusively focus on major crimes that include kidnapping and extortion, along with a new task force dedicated to tracking missing persons.

[82] Eric Martin of Bloomberg News stated that if Peña Nieto wants to invite investment, he must face the challenges of union leaders and local officials who have benefited from the oil company's bonanza.

[82] Peña Nieto declared while campaigning that overhauling Pemex will be the PRI's and his "signature issue," and that he will encourage private companies to invest in exploration and development activities.

[89][90] In an interview with Aristegui Noticias, Washington-based freelance journalist Dolia Estévez said she obtained access to part of a one-hour phone conversation between the two presidents the day of the scheduled meeting.

[98] During his tenure as president, Peña Nieto has been accused of failing to protect journalists, whose deaths have been speculated to be politically triggered by officials attempting to prevent coverage of scandals.

"[99] In November 2014, an article was published by journalist Carmen Aristegui, indicating that a $7 million "White House" owned by Enrique Peña Nieto and his wife Angelica Rivera, in Lomas de Chapultepec was registered under the name of a company affiliated with a business group that had received government contracts to build a bullet train.

[103][104] Peña Nieto's successor in the presidency of Mexico, Andres Manuel López Obrador, promised Aristegui would be free to return to radio if she wanted and that there would be no more unfair censorship towards the freedom of speech.

[106][107] In 2016, Aristegui revealed in a special report arguing that Enrique Peña Nieto had committed plagiarism in his law thesis, at least a third of it, with 197 out of 682 paragraphs being unsourced or wrongly sourced works.

In March 2018, during the campaign period for the 2018 presidential election, the Prosecutor General's Office (PGR) opened an investigation into the PAN's candidate, Ricardo Anaya, for money laundering.

[124] On November 12, 2020, the Attorney General's Office (FGR) officially accused Peña Nieto of being a "traitor to the country and of electoral fraud due to the Odebrecht scandal" along with Lozoya and Videgaray.

The report accused both Peña Nieto and his predecessor, Felipe Calderón, of "almost completely failing" to ensure accountability for the actions of the Mexican army and of denying or minimizing the scale of the atrocities.

[128] In June 2018, human rights organizations presented documents alleging slayings, tortures, rapes, and forced disappearances to the International Criminal Court, and called on them to investigate.

[154] The lack of popularity and credibility of Peña Nieto's government is perceived to have caused the PRI to suffer a significant defeat in the 2018 Mexican general election, where the party received the lowest vote percentage in its history.

[162] In 2008, Peña Nieto began a relationship with Televisa soap opera actress Angélica Rivera, whom he had hired to help publicize his political campaign for the State of Mexico.