Mexico's leading presidential candidate is handsome, popular and still a mystery

ATLACOMULCO, Mexico — In his campaign for president, Mexico’s handsome front-runner, Enrique Peña Nieto, looks down from towering billboards with a movie-star smile. “Tu me conoces,” he says. You know me.

But the fact is, many don’t.

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With the July 1 presidential vote only weeks away, Peña Nieto holds a solid double-digit lead in the polls. But Mexican voters and U.S. observers confess that they do not really know what the candidate stands for. Nor are they sure how he would govern Mexico, a vital trade partner for the United States, Mexico’s ally in the fight against drug cartels.

“Do people really know him?” asked independent pollster Roy Campos. “No, but they want to get to know him.”

Disparaged by his opponents as a pretty puppet and telegenic con man, the 45-year-old Peña Nieto is a masterful retail politician who, through message discipline and sophisticated marketing, has made himself the new face of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. Known as the PRI, the autocratic political machine fell from power in 2000 after running Mexico with a blend of corruption and coercion for 71 years.

Peña Nieto was born into the PRI in this quiet farm town a few hours’ drive northwest of the capital. He learned politics at the family dinner table. Even as a child, his hair was neatly combed, his manners impeccable. He appears to have approached his life as a ceaseless campaign.

“Instead of playing with other boys his age, he always wanted to be with the adults, talking about politics,” said one of his aunts, Berta del Mazo. “They told him even then, ‘You’re going to govern someday.’ ”

A cadre of old-style political bosses known as the Atlacomulco Group schooled young Enrique in the lessons of patronage and power.

Five men from his family had served as governor of the state of Mexico, the country’s most populous, by the time Peña Nieto was ready for his turn at the job in 2005. His time in office set him on the path to this year’s presidential run.

One of his mentors was family member Arturo Montiel, who preceded him as governor and later faced accusations of enriching himself with public money.

“Who is Enrique Peña Nieto, really?” said Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the left’s presidential candidate, at their first debate, expressing aloud a question that has been on many minds.

“He’s been following a script all along. It’s like a storyboard,” said Jenaro Villamil, a reporter with the muckraking newsweekly Proceso who depicts the candidate as the made-for-TV creation of Televisa, the country’s dominant media conglomerate.

In his books and articles, which are being cited by Peña Nieto’s rivals, Villamil asserts that as governor, Peña Nieto gave millions to Televisa in advertising contracts to guarantee maximum exposure on the network’s programming, allegations the candidate rejects.

On Friday, Peña Nieto faced new accusations that he paid Televisa to have its commentators praise him on the air. The candidate insisted that he merely bought commercial spots before and after the commentaries — just like a tequila company would, he said.