Mexico is the Third-Largest Trading Partner of The United States

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Mexico is the third-largest trading partner of the United States and a majority middle-class country, but one held back by corruption, poverty, red tape and monopolies.

On July 1, 2012, Enrique Peña Nieto, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled the country from 1929 to 2000, was elected president of Mexico. Troubled by a bloody drug war and an economic malaise, voters gave a comfortable victory to Mr. Nieto, sometimes called the Pretty Boy (or Gel Boy because of his styled hair).

Mr. Peña Nieto will succeed Felipe Calderón, who took office in 2006 in a hotly disputed election. Mexico’s presidents are limited to a single six-year term.

Mr. Peña Nieto’s victory was a stunning reversal of fortune for the centrist PRI, which was thought to be crippled after its defeat in the 2000 presidential election ushered in an era of real multiparty democracy here.

Buoyed by a strong machine across several states, by the youthful Mr. Peña Nieto’s capture of the television spotlight and by voters’ unhappiness with the direction of the country, the PRI defeated both the incumbent conservative party and the candidate who nearly beat the conservatives last time.

During the race, cynical commentators joked that it was essentially a battle between the Pretty Boy, the Quinceañera Doll and the Tired Has-Been.

Mr. Peña Nieto’s opponents were Josefina Vázquez Mota, a former education secretary under Mr. Calderón, who is a conservative. She is called the Quinceañera Doll because she is always smiling, but her party — the P.A.N., or National Action Party — has been in charge for 12 years, a time of rising violence and continued corruption.

The other candidate was Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a liberal former mayor of Mexico City who lost the last election in 2006 by 0.6 percentage points. The oldest of the candidates, he is sometimes called the Tired Has-Been.

Mr. Calderón will step down at the end of 2012. After a turbulent first year in office, Mr. Calderón cemented his hold on power, divided the main opposition party and launched a full-scale offensive against drug cartels. The wave of violence that followed consumed his presidency. More than 50,000 Mexicans have been killed since Mr. Calderón dispatched his military to take down the traffickers.

[readon1 url="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/mexico/index.html"]Source:topics.nytimes.com [/readon1]