Don't Miss:'Monster' box officeKiller who won the lotteryTwinkies' return dateA fawn, a fox, and a surpriseMarket St. 1, 2012. Pena Nieto took the oath of office as Mexico's new president on Saturday, bringing the old ruling party back to power after a 12year hiatus amid protests inside and outside the congressional chamber where he swore to protect the constitution and laws of the land. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini)
Photo: Alexandre Meneghini, Associated Press
Mexico's incoming President Enrique Pena Nieto spreads out his arms.
Mexico City
With protests and little pomp, Enrique on Saturday began football jerseys wholesale china his sixyear term as president of Mexico, promising big spending and sweeping changes to bring peace and prosperity to a country troubled by drug violence and uneven economic growth.
"This is Mexico's moment," Pena Nieto declared in his inaugural address before a gathering of domestic and foreign leaders at the national palace, including Vice President , while demonstrators kept far from the scene vandalized buildings outside.
Pena Nieto, 46, a lawyer who had been governor of Mexico state, has pledged to work closely with the United States to strengthen cheap football jerseys security and economic ties, which he believes would bring Mexico closer to a middleclass society and reduce the kind of drug war violence that has killed tens of thousands in the past several years.
He made no promise to dismantle the drugtrafficking organizations, a focus of his immediate predecessor, . Instead, he unveiled a sweeping 13point agenda focused more on domestic goals for crime prevention, lessening poverty and hunger, improving schooling, building new passenger trains and expanding Internet access.
"We are a nation that is growing at two speeds; some live behind and in poverty and others live in the developing part," he said, alluding to new manufacturing plants and investments but also grinding poverty that affects half the population.
Pena Nieto ushers in a new era for the , known as the toppled it in 2000 and again in 2006.
Pena Nieto and his associates say they represent a new, chastened party bent on promoting efficiency and economic change there were no public inaugural celebrations and promising to fight the kind of corruption long associated with it.
"It's a very common misconception to think that the PRI's return to power means the return of something that is already in history," , who led the president's transition team and is now finance minister, said in a recent interview.
Pena Nieto hardly begins with a mandate; he won 38 percent of the vote and faces a divided Congress. He recited the oath of office before Congress amid cheers and jeers, mostly from leftist legislators, and left the congressional chamber quickly.
Later, outside the national palace, scores of mostly young masked people clashed with the police, set fires, threw rocks and vandalized hotels and stores along several blocks. More than 60 were arrested and several were injured.