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Mexico's Peña Nieto First 100 Days in Office Mixes Progress with Stagnation - Mexico Institute in the News

“The murder rate for the first 100 days is not a good measure of a presidency,” said Christopher Wilson, an associate at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “You have to give some time for him to implement the policies and then some more time for the policies to take effect.”

Fox News Latino

Peña Nieto campaigned on a promise of reducing violent crime among Mexico’s citizens while moving away from the tactics employed under Calderón.

So far this strategy has not worked out well, with some 2,882 people being killed in his first one hundred days in office –including 100 soldiers and police officers– compared with 2,338 people in the last hundred days of Calderón’s administration.

Mexican experts, however, argue that it is too early to judge Peña Nieto’s strategy as his policies have not been completely enacted and he has yet to appoint some of the members of his cabinet.

“The murder rate for the first 100 days is not a good measure of a presidency,” said Christopher Wilson, an associate at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “You have to give some time for him to implement the policies and then some more time for the policies to take effect.”

The first policy issue that Peña Nieto confronted when he moved into the president’s residence at Los Pinos was education.

In December, Congress passed a new law aimed at regaining control of the education system by the state and limiting the power of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE). The law created an autonomous body for teachers’ evaluations in order to encourage the professionalism and remove the influence of the SNTE.

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Mexico Institute

The Mexico Institute seeks to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship. A binational Advisory Board, chaired by Luis Téllez and Earl Anthony Wayne, oversees the work of the Mexico Institute.   Read more