Mexico turns page on handsome, scandal-stained

Six years after he seduced Mexico with his dashing good looks and promises of sweeping reform, President Enrique Pena Nieto leaves a legacy stained by corruption, violence and human rights violations.

Charming his way to the presidency in 2012, his soap opera star wife by his side, Pena Nieto sold himself to voters as a fresh young reformer who would reinvent his party -- the once-hegemonic Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) -- and Mexico along with it.

The PRI had ruled Mexico as a one-party state from 1929 to 2000, until people grew so disgusted with its corruption, cronyism and abuses it had little choice but to allow free elections.

Twelve turbulent years later, Pena Nieto, then 45 years old, pulled off what once seemed unthinkable: returning the PRI to power, by promising to restore the stability of the old days but usher in a new era of democracy, transparency and reform.

It all started well for the youthful president with the sleek black hair, who had previously been governor of Mexico state, the country's most populous: in rapid succession he passed landmark reforms in energy, education, telecommunications, labour and more.

The reforms, which touched virtually every aspect of Mexicans' lives, were essentially a national make-over, designed to give the country a fresh new start and wash away the accumulated grime of seven decades of one-party rule.

Pena Nieto made a splash on the international stage, too: during an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the Philippines in 2015, infatuated fans coined the Twitter hashtag #APEChotties for him and then-newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The Economist magazine urged Pena Nieto to "keep it up," The Washington Post called him "handsome" and "popular," and CBS News declared him "the George Clooney of politics."
But as Mexicans prepare to cast their ballots again on July 1, the outgoing president's popularity is hovering around 20 per cent. His chosen successor, former finance minister Jose Antonio Meade, appears to be on track for a drubbing, polling a distant third to fiery leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador -- who has a double-digit lead -- and conservative Ricardo Anaya. Where did it all go wrong?