Mexican President-Elect Pena Nieto Unveils Transition Team Dave Graham and Anahi Rama - Reuters
go to original September 4, 2012

Mexico's President-elect Pena Nieto speaks during a news conference today in Mexico City. (Tomas Bravo/Reuters)

MEXICO CITY - Mexican President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto unveiled his transition team on Tuesday, and named his election campaign manager, Luis Videgaray, viewed as a possible pick for finance minister, as its head.

Centrist Pena Nieto, 46, will be sworn in on December 1 and has pledged a raft of reforms to the labor market, the tax system and state oil monopoly Pemex, which he hopes will help boost economic growth to about 6 percent a year.

Pena Nieto wants to encourage more private investment in Pemex, which became a symbol of Mexican self-sufficiency, and soften labor laws.

However, he will likely face resistance from leftist rival and election runner-up Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who refuses to recognize his victory, as well as from some within the ranks of his own Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

The transition team includes members of his inner circle, some of whom could form part of his Cabinet, as well as members from his team during his 2005-2011 governorship of the State of Mexico and figures from the PRI's old guard.

The PRI was dogged by allegations of corruption and dirty tricks during its 71-year rule that ended in 2000, and Pena Nieto has sought to push the image of a new, reinvented PRI.

An official close to Pena Nieto said Cabinet positions could be filled by people not on the list.

Videgaray, an economist educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is part of a new generation of PRI technocrats whom analysts consider well-qualified to keep Mexico's finances healthy.

Editing by Simon Gardner and Eric Beech

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