Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto One Year In Office: Studies Show No Significant Achievements

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has held the presidency for a year on Sunday. However, Univision reports that the Mexican leader has made no significant achievements in the areas of security, economy or human rights. While there has been a significant shift in the strategy in the fight against drug trafficking from previous president Felipe Calderon, violence and corruption continue to rise throughout the country.

Peña Nieto's presidency has been marked by a shift away from all out, open warfare against drug cartels which characterized his predecessor, Calderon. However, Rodrigo Salazar from the Faculty of Latinamerican Social Sciences (FLACSO) states that "levels of crime remain very high." Moreover, as Latin Times reported last week, Human Rights watch has reprimanded the president for failing to deliver any significant improvement in this area.

Peña Nieto has, in fact, seen a dramatic increase in the amount of kidnappings and disappearances: accoridng to Cesar Velazquez of the Iberoamerican University, these issues only seem less pressing because the media has decreased its coverage of the atrocities, however, disapearances, attacks against journalists and activists as well as police brutality towards protesters is at an all-time high.

Meanwhile, despite the fact that the President inherited an economic situation of considerable stability following Calderon's recovery from the GFC, the PRI has been inattentice to public spending and weakened the economy. Despite the fact that Mexico had a growth of 3.9 percent in 2012, analysts expect the country to finish 2013 with a growth rate of just 1.3 percent.